


Falling through curses

by Keenir



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-17
Updated: 2012-06-16
Packaged: 2017-11-07 22:24:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 27,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/436103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keenir/pseuds/Keenir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Belle’s new life is a tale all her own.</p>
<p>(ignores everything after "what happened to Frederick")</p>
<p> </p>
<p><b>Warning:</b>  Unlike the show, where the focus is on Storybrooke, here the focus is on the other land, and has clips and scenes from Storybrooke - but you wouldn't find them all in a single episode.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This was written as part of [a Reverse Big Bang at the Big Bang Mixup comm](http://bigbang-mixup.livejournal.com).
> 
>  
> 
> **Word Count** : 26968 words.
> 
> **Rating/Warnings** : PG-13 / brief inclusion of death by ground liquifaction, the threat of being turned into soup, and mentions what Snow White did to the trolls. 
> 
> **Mix** : [Untitled.](http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?wkhz00l1k8laizt) by _casper_san_
> 
> **Story** : [prologue](http://rodlox.livejournal.com/521725.html) & [part 1](http://rodlox.livejournal.com/518628.html) &  
> [part 2](http://rodlox.livejournal.com/520976.html) & [part 3](http://rodlox.livejournal.com/520889.html) &   
> [part 4](http://rodlox.livejournal.com/520647.html) & part 5 & [part 6](http://rodlox.livejournal.com/520027.html) &  
> [part 7](http://rodlox.livejournal.com/519835.html) & [part 8](http://rodlox.livejournal.com/519569.html) & [part 9](http://rodlox.livejournal.com/519362.html) &   
> [part 10](http://rodlox.livejournal.com/519148.html) & [part 11](http://rodlox.livejournal.com/518767.html).  
> [Literary references](http://rodlox.livejournal.com/521351.html).
> 
> **Notes** : The underlying here was simply "what if The Queen had not told Rumplestiltskin the truth because she didn't herself know it?" Which begged the question of "Then where was Belle?" This story is an attempt to answer that question.
> 
> **Thanks to:** Mustangcandi for the knowledge about gold. Seren_CCD for the advice. Sabaceanbabe for the vids and the beta. Pygmymuse and Seren_CCD for beta-reading before I had figured out how to end the tale. I thank you all; you have all been invaluable.
> 
> All remaining errors are entirely my own.

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

  
_  
that won’t   
_   


  
_  
Be caught in a commonplace way.   
_   


  
_  
Do all that you know, and try all that you don’t:   
_   


  
_  
Not a chance must be wasted today !   
_   


**.~~~.PROLOGUE:**

She did not know this place as Storybrooke. 

Here, to her eyes and other senses, reality was a barely-discernable web around her. Her limbs were leaden; her mind was roiling chaos, without form, a void.

Over time, she began to form words.

When her mind was complete, she would emerge and walk the land.

For the time being, she was content to sit and wait in this padded cell.

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

_When Belle was a small child, a priest visited - a boto, specifically - to lead those who lived in the castle in a *memento mori*._

_She saw all the candles in the castle being snuffed out. "The intent," uncle Midas whispered to her conspiratorially, "is to end with only one candle lit. That’s the good; they say."_

_Belle tried keeping her eyes on the big candle held by the boto. But Belle’s eyes kept wandering up to a wall sconce whose tiny faint flame was never put out._ If the big one is good, then _that_ is…? The immortal things of this world?

_The image never left her. It remained always in the back of her mind._

***NOW:**

Belle ran against her wishes and out of fear. Fear because while Rumplestiltskin had let her leave unharmed, there was ever the chance he might change his mind and send something after her, or cast a spell upon her or…

_Or he could come out here personally for me,_ Belle thought, though she was torn as to whether her odds would be better or worse if Rumplestiltskin were to do that.

And that was why it was against her will: she hadn’t wished to leave. Even now, Belle half expected him to change his mind and call her back. Even if _all_ were not forgiven. _I can work with that._

Belle kept running silently, to keep warm in these frozen peaks, and to keep clear of the unseen dragons whose chill breath could be seen rising off the mountains.

***THE PAST:**

Tense as things with the River Demons were at the moment, Nixie took the time to stand on the river's bend when Sinuhe stood on it's shore and asked what lived in this water.

Whiter than chalk, whiter than limestone plaster, Nixie stood and replied calmly, "You are yelling."

"My family is gone. My homeland is gone," Sinuhe said. "They have all been destroyed. Nothing beside remains!"

"Your daughter is still alive, so why not find her?"

"She went with her Fairy Godmother. A child's request should not be considered a binding agreement."

"Anything which can speak, can make a bargain. I have seen simpletons become kings, men become beasts, and stones weep. Did your daughter tell you the terms of her deal with she who became her Fairy Godmother?"

Sinuhe bowed his head in shame. "My daughter heard me speak of the land of my birth, and a fairy heard her plea that I be able to return there."

Nixie looked down at her water lapping at her toes. To Sinuhe, she said, "Her Fairy Godmother will be destroyed by your son, Sinuhe."

Now his head was not bowed. "Did you not hear, river creature? My family is dead, turned to salt and dust," Sinuhe said.

"One family. Your first family," Nixie said. "You will take a new wife and make a new family. Your son will repay your debt to me - but he will not be an offering to me." _And your son’s love will end the War._

"And where will I find this wife-to-be?"

_Not I._ "I will not provide all the answers," and she sank back beneath the river surface.

Sinuhe left and resumed his wandering. In time, he came upon a woman who became his wife.

Their firstborn, they bestowed upon him the name _**Rumplestiltskin**_ , son of Sinuhe and Arachne, who would in time be known as Granny.


	2. Going Downhill

**THE PRESENT:**

"Greetings, good king -" Nixie began to say.

"I am not in a mood to entertain interlopers," Midas said. Be gone, river woman."

"You’re upset, so I shall ignore the slight you offer. Offer despite my prophetic words."

Midas knew exactly what she meant: the Nixie had once told him that ‘your gold touch will save the life of one you love.’ That had led to the horror befalling Abigail. And that was how Frederick had entered her service.

"Where is Belle now?" Midas demanded.

"Learning," the Nixie said. "And trying not to be killed."

“Learning what?”

“Which secret do you fear she will learn?”

**Meanwhile:**

Belle didn’t stop running until she came to the fork in the road. "Two paths," she said to herself, shivering. _Within_ Rumplestiltskin’s castle, it was nice and warm, as was the best road to the village. But that road had disappeared - _Stupid magic man!_ \- and the only other road wound a while through the frozen mountains. And now there was a fork.

"This’d better not be a trick," Belle muttered. The sign for one way read

‘This Is The Long Way.

Warning: Sidewalk Ends.’

"That doesn’t sound good," Belle said. "And I just want to get home." The sign for the other way read

TROLL BRIDGE.

‘Goats Not Permitted.’

"The Troll Bridge it is, then," Belle said, making her way along that path. As she walked over the at times unpaved stone trail, Belle rehearsed what she would tell her father once she had returned to the Ducal Court. "He gave me leave, Father. The deal hasn’t been revoked. Father! I’m happy to see you again," Belle said, not that eager to see Gaston again, however. But none of those statements felt good enough. "Perhaps a ‘There’s no need to panic’ when I return ?"

As Belle made her way down the mountain, it amazed her just how easy a path this was - no holes or dung piles to watch out for, no low-hanging branches, or lurking predators. There also was not much evidence of foot traffic. _You would think such a nice and well-kept path would attract more use._

After a while, Belle’s sight-seeing ended, her attention caught by the ever-familiar red sky. _It shouldn’t be that close!_ Belle knew - that was the direction of her duchy - _My father’s duchy. I agreed to leave._ \- and the red was thicker and richer in addition to being nearer.

“Breath-taking, isn’t it?”

Belle stopped walking and looked to who had spoken to her: a man-sized cockroach. “It’s horrible!” Belle said.

“Yes. Can’t it be both?” it - he - asked.

“I suppose. But it shouldn’t be.”

“Ah. Says an empty-handed woman leaving Rumplestiltskin’s castle,” he jested.

“You know Rumplestiltskin?” Belle asked. _Everyone knows *of* him, sure…_

“I knew him before he became the Evil One. I introduced him to his wife, oh, my manners, tsk. My name is Gregor Samsa.”

“I’m Belle.”

“An honor to meet you.”

“I’m nobody special.”

“How much time did you spend in Rumplestiltskin’s castle?”

“A few months.”

“Which is longer than anybody else lasted. Ergo, an honor to meet you.”

“I don’t know.”

“Problem?” Samsa asked.

“I asked for the wrong thing, I just know it,” Belle said.

“Everyone does. Don’t worry about it.”

“You don’t understand! Everyone was depending on me! Ohhh, is there any way to stop the ogres?”

“Of course.”

“How?” Belle asked. _Even if it’ too late to ask it of Rumplestiltskin._

Samsa didn’t shrug, not under all that armor. “I don’t know.”

“But you just said -”

“Ogres don’t belong to the Unstoppable Class. Therefore, there is at least one way to stop them. I don’t know how to stop their entire army, which is what I suspect you’re referring to, yes?”

Belle nodded. And she didn’t know what to say about that or…

"Take a look at the sky."

Belle complied.

"Do you know what you’re looking at?"

"A red sky by day. It’s caused by the Ogre War."

"It insulates them from long-range magic. Anyone who wants to cast a spell on them, must do so on the battlefields."

A sick feeling struck Belle in the gut: _Rumplestiltskin vowed to keep papa’s duchy safe - neither he nor papa said anything about stopping the ogre advance._

Samsa lifted his flask for a one-sided toast, took a swig from it, and then handed the flask to Belle.

She looked at it, not touching a flask inscribed with Drink Me.

“It’s just water,” Samsa said.

Belle held the flask but still didn’t drink from it.

That was fine by Samsa. “Keep it; I don’t need it anymore, trying to quit.”

“You’re trying to stop drinking water?” Belle asked.

“Water of fortitude. Helps you find the courage deep within.”

“You’re sure it’s not some other drink?”

Samsa nodded and said, “One hundred percent water.” He looked to the side. "You’re wondering," Samsa said. "Everyone does; I’m accustomed to it."

"That’s no excuse," Belle stated.

"And yet you’re wondering if my armor is a disguise, or if I really am an insect," he said with a smile.

"I’m sorry."

"There’s no need, child; though I *do* appreciate it. I put this armor on as soon as I was old enough to fight in the War. And I was very good at it."

"At fighting?" Belle asked, not saying that he hadn’t answered the insect bit.

"I made a name for myself, killing ogres. The key is to locate their souls, because you can’t kill an ogre while its soul is hidden. But you could say I became boastful, and an ogre chief bound me to my armor, transforming my boast into a prophecy: I will never remove my armor until the War ends.” _Some day…_ “Bad as that was, I prefer that one. For I had made myself another enemy that day,” Samsa said. _The Hero himself. He used me and my unit as an opening move in his Reign, to demonstrate his power. How long it took me to realize he had started the war between men and ogres. Dramagogue._

"Could the curse be ended by true love?" Belle asked, remembering how the Queen had said it could defeat _any_ curse.

 _Did you hear the part about my other enemy? Or do you think they‘re connected?_ "*I* can be ended - killed - but that wouldn’t end the curse." Suspecting Belle didn’t grasp what he meant, Samsa said, "Weak curses can be defeated - serious curses are transferable: to the victor go more than the spoils."

 _Why didn’t the Queen say that?"_ Belle wondered. _Did she think - know - I’d be hesitant to kiss Rumplestiltskin if I knew it would make_ me _into the next Evil One?_ Belle made a face at the uncertainty of what she would have said and done, how she would have handled herself. _Did she leave it as a surprise so I wouldn’t be able to stop her if I succeeded?_ Would I _have been able to? Does a person become the Evil One, at full power on their first day? Or does it force its new Evil Ones to begin only mildly powerful and advance from there?_

“Have you ever seen ogres wage war?”

“I haven’t,” Belle said.

“One against a dozen men, sometimes against a hundred.”

“One? A single ogre…? All the battles of the war thus far?”

“Not the same ogre each time, no. But there’s really no point to them fighting in teams. Massively unfair.”

“I didn’t know,” Belle said.

“Understandable. Nobody likes to admit his army got its butt kicked by one guy all on his lonesome.”

An idea occurred to Belle: “You said if the ogres fought in teams, there’d be no point in fighting.”

“I did say that.”

“Do the ogres agree?”

“You’d have to ask them, but, yeah, I‘d assume so. Ogres love challenges.”

_Like Rumplestiltskin loves dreams and aspirations._


	3. Homewards

****IN STORYBROOKE:**

"Who’re you?" Emma asked the woman who was questioning the possible witnesses Emma hadn’t gotten to yet.

Those witnesses scattered, which didn’t seem to bother the woman. "Afternoon, Sheriff," she said and pulled a card from her wallet. "Here you go."

"Myra Able?" Emma asked, reading the card. "You’re a private investigator?"

"Fully accredited. Am I to interpret your look of surprise as a sign you never wondered how Storybrooke survived with only one police officer?"

"We had two. For a little while."

"That’s answer enough."

"Are you going to cooperate with me on this investigation, or do I need to send you home?" Emma asked.

"I could coordinate with you, Sheriff," Myra said. "But this is more May Noapte’s expertise. Ask Dr. He."

"I’ll do that," Emma said.

Myra started to walk away, but then she paused. "I just have one question for you," Myra said to Emma. "Before Henry Mills’ current obsession with believing us all to be fictional, do you know what preoccupied his mind?"

"He’s a kid," Emma said. "Henry was probably interested in dinosaurs or airplanes."

"No."

"No?"

"Henry’s had the same fascination for as long as anyone can remember."

‘As long as anyone can remember.’ Emma recognized that as the same length of time that Regina had been Mayor or that anything in Storybrooke had been going on. "This doctor you mentioned…"

"Dr. He."

"Where would I find him?"

"There’s only one place he ever goes: home."

****IN THE ENCHANTED:**

Around the next bend they encountered a young woman - little older than Belle herself - sitting on the ground and giggling as she made sandcastles from mud and rotted leaves and shattered skulls.

"Hello?" Belle asked. "Do you need help or…?" Belle didn’t see the look on Samsa’s face.

The young woman clapped as stroppy craftlings pursued one another in tight circles before collapsing into a single mess.

"I’m Belle…" She noticed then that the sitter was mouthing… something which was turning a grain of dirt into a pearl

…into a shell

…into an armored wriggler

…into an oddfish

…into a hungry air-thing which

…became a thing which ran away.

The young woman squeed.

‘All magic has a price,’ Belle recalled. _Was this talent for creation what you wished for?_ Belle wondered, while also wondering how much of Rumplestiltskin’s erratic personality was from the sheer number of deals he had made over however many years.

 _It doesn’t matter,_ Belle resolved.

"Yay!" said the other woman, who then vanished.

"She disappeared," Belle said to Samsa, seeing the fear on his face.

"If you say so," Samsa said.

“If you don’t think she disappeared, then where do you think she went?”

 _Where she went, what happened to her._ “She’s gone on ahead to another part of the story,” Samsa said.

“This isn’t a story, it’s real,” Belle said.

“It’s all a story. The question is who’s going to tell it?”

As Belle contemplated that, she saw they had reached the sign informing them that they had reached the Troll Bridge. Crumpled trolls, lay scattered here and there across the bridge’s length and breadth.

Belle froze, vividly remembering stories about what trolls could to women and men alike. Just when she was contemplating turning around, heading back, and taking that other road. But then Belle noticed the wounds inflicted on these trolls, and she knew the right thing to do - and thus the brave thing to do - was to lend a hand, to help.

And so she did. Samsa watched the girl go from petrified to determined, so he followed her onto the Troll Bridge instead of going onto the bridge alone as he had been about to.

“What happened?” Belle asked. She had never before seen a wounded ogre before, much less a troll, but these trolls looked like they had nearly been squashed.

The trolls looked one to another, then at her. “You care?” one asked diffidently.

“I do,” Belle said. “It’s only right.”

“A double-cross happened weeks ago. It still hurts. The Lurker in The Woods went back on a trade she made with us, helping some prince. When we said we knew she was Snow White, she turned us into cockroaches and let her prince step on us.”

“That’s a horrible betrayal!” Belle exclaimed.

“Horrible, yes. The _betrayal_ was when her father revoked the promise made to us, the promise of sanctuary.”

“Hence they live under the bridge,” Samsa said to Belle.

“That’s not fair,” Belle said.

“He did it when he returned from the homeland of his daughter’s mother.”

“And speaking of her,” said the first troll, “if our souls had been on our persons that day Snow White turned on us, we’d be dead.”

 _So...ogres are not the only ones able to move and hide their souls?_ Belle wondered. One of the trolls peered at Belle as she tied a splint to its half-mashed leg. Belle didn’t wince: for all their tusks and muscles and claws, they didn’t strike her as being dangerous. She knew, _Ogres are and **HE** is!_

"You will not kill me," Mashedleg said.

"I don’t want to," Belle said. "I want to help."

This didn’t seem to make sense to any of the trolls. "Why?"

"Because I can help," she said.

"Help us?" Mashedleg asked.

"That’s right."

"Does this help include revenge upon our attackers?"

"I’m afraid I can’t do that."

"Of course; human," spoken in a way that suggested a stereotype had been confirmed. "Then a warning, good benefactor: beware of Snow White and her prince who is an imposter."

"Thank you for the warning," Belle said.

"You…are welcome. I have a deal for you."

"No deals!" Belle snapped.

Even the trolls flinched at that.

"I’m sorry," Belle said.

Unperturbed, Mashedleg said, "A reward, then. When you have attended to all my fellows here, I will fly you to wherever your destination is."

"That’s very kind of you," Belle said.

"It is a reward, not a kindness."

"Is it a reward if I said I would help you even without it?" Belle asked.

"Yes," Mashedleg said.

*****

Looking down, Belle could see the mountain forests give way to… _No,_ she thought numbly.

Three-quarters of the borders of her family’s duchy were lands now destroyed by the encroaching tide of ogres. But, as promised, the duchy itself was safe. _‘You have my word’ he had said._

****IN STORYBROOKE:**

In the depths of the Storybrooke Hospital, the duty nurse unlocked and opened the door to Patient Number Four’s room. “You can go now,” the nurse said, knowing only that this patient had to be let go - despite the paperwork and medical documentation arguing otherwise.

“Three eyes,” the patient said.

That triggered more memories, notably of who this patient truly is. “Yes, your Majesty.”

“Now’s not right. I need gather my thoughts. Time…soon.”

The nurse nodded. “Of course, your Majesty. Whenever you deem best,” and Nurse Three Eyes shut the door. She did not lock it.

****IN ENCHANTED:**

No sooner had Belle’s feet touched the grass, than the webbed feet of the great swan let go of her, the swan transforming back into the troll Mashedleg. "Your father’s castle is right around the next bend in the road, as you requested," Mashedleg said.

"Thank you," Belle said. _It would have been pure trouble had I asked to be brought directly to Father’s castle - trolls are kin to ogres, after all._

"You…are welcome. A request?"

"If I can help."

"Should you see any of my seven daughters, tell them they are welcome home." As if a clue, "They inherited my transformational power."

"I’ll pass that along, if I see them," Belle promised.

"You swear?"

"I swear I‘ll do what I can."

"As I swore to do," Mashedleg said.

Belle frowned at his tone, then noticed that Mashedleg’s feet and ankles were badly singed - damage which hadn’t been there before. _I never felt any heat or flames,_ Belle thought as he became a great swan again and took flight. "Goodbye."

As she walked the short remaining distance, Belle wondered if the old tales about trolls being harmed by being out and working in sunlight were true - or if Mashedleg simply hadn’t wanted to admit to being allergic to humans.

The castle doors opened, timed such that Belle didn’t have to slow down and closing once she was inside.

 _All the mirrors are covered_ , was Belle’s first observation. _As is anything shiny._ "What happened?" she asked.

"Plague?" said her father the Duke. "One of our knights made a wish for a way to kill the entire ogre army. Only once the wish was granted did he learn we had not failed with Rumplestiltskin as he had feared."

"Oh father," Belle said. _I leave to keep away the ogre army, and there therefore are no ogres to catch this disease._

"But why are you here, daughter? While I am overjoyed to see you safe, that is tempered by caution, you must understand."

"I _do_ understand," Belle said. "And I did not escape. Rumplestiltskin set me free. The agreement has not been breeched. I feel…” Belle said, and collapsed, her fall slowed by grabbing drapes.

“Summon King Midas!” Duke Mo commanded a servant. “And a cleric, and my physician.”

*****

“She collapsed?” Midas asked, now in the tallest tower of the ducal lands, looking at Belle, not looking at Mo.

“She did,” Mo said. “My physician examined her while you were on your way here.”

“And he found nothing,” Midas said.

“Only the most superficial things, more of a cleric’s area of expertise than his own.”

“Hm,” Midas said, and walked around the room, transmuting all the reflective surfaces.

“My King?” Mo asked.

"I need a minute," King Midas said after transforming all the room’s glass into gold. "To say my goodbye."

"My King, I am afraid we cannot do that," the Duke said. "The clerics were insistent on that."

"Then I will not spare you the sight," Midas said, standing at Belle’s bedside and sliding a glove from one hand.

"Good King Midas, the clerics may yet succeed! Or we could -"

"Make another deal? When will you learn?" _That is how I came into your family. That is why Belle left here._

"No," the Duke said, hanging his head, ashamed. “No more deals,” he resolved.

Without turning his head to the lesser man, Midas said with a glare in his voice, "You should have mourned Belle when you failed her."

"The deal was struck," the Duke said plaintively.

"When did clerics start making deals?"

 _Oh. You mean…_ "I could have handled my daughter’s return better than I did."

"No," Midas said. "You _should have_ done so, and with only relief in your heart. Your prodigal daughter is no longer yours. I am taking custody of my niece. Her fate is my choice."

"But -"

Midas stared at him. "You have robbed her of her voice by your acquiescence. Shall I silence you with a finger?" He did not wait to hear the answer.

King Midas reached down, gingerly touching the discoloration on Belle’s neck. "Peace," he promised her.

Belle’s eyes snapped open. She leaped out of bed - and darted to the window before anyone could stop her.

Calmly, Midas looked at the window, raised his bared hand, and pointed at the Belle-made hole. One of his servants - a woman - ran after Belle, exiting the window in the same way.

*****

Belle fell.

She dropped like a candle from the tower top to the reeds at the tower’s foot. The river’s tide took away her still form.

Her family waited for an attack - from the ogres, from Rumplestiltskin - but none came. They continued to wait in fear.

*****

The Evil Queen felt the air in the room, letting the magical trail lead her up to the topmost part of the Duke’s tower. She knew of only one thing in any kingdom which had magic like this: _A snark?_ the Queen thought with a measure of alarm. _Not all of what I sense is from Midas. There are more now?_

Thus it was a mixture of emotions that she used to throw open ahead of her the doors to the tower’s topmost room as she demanded, "Where is she?” Fear was one - a fear of spies and assassins, two tasks snarks always did well. And curiosity about what had become of the girl who had captured Rumplestiltskin’s heart - _surely she can’t have died so soon._

"As I told you before," the Duke said. "My daughter has passed.”

 _That much is true._ "All the glass in this room has been turned to gold. Why would you do that if you had nothing to hide?"

"My daughter’s uncle is King Midas, whose… eccentricities are to be endured. He left for his castle shortly before you arrived, Queen."

"Rest assured, I’ll have words with him as well," she said while making her way around the room where Belle had been kept once Rumplestiltskin had finished with her. "In the meantime -"

"Majesty, _my_ daughter has died! Might you grant I and my household the same grace you yourself might expect, had you been so unfortunate as to lose a child?" the Duke asked, fully expecting to be struck dead for that.

"As it happens, I _do_ understand that degree of loss," the Queen said. "Very well. Once your time of mourning has passed, you will answer whatever is put to you," she said, looking at the window which her sense told her a young woman had recently crashed through.

"Yes."

"With interest."


	4. In the river and on

****MEANWHILE:**

"Wake, girl."

Belle opened her eyes once more. This time, she was in a grotto.

"In answer to the inevitable, I am the Nixie. Tell me, how is Rumplestiltskin?"

"I don’t -"

"Advice: on lies, I am _far_ less tolerant of them than the boy you know."

"He’s not a boy," Belle said defensively.

“Youth, then,” the Nixie said. “You know him. Not as well as you may like.”

“What business is it of yours?” Belle snapped, then covered her own mouth. “I -”

“*I* am the Nixie. Foe of the River Demons. Arbiter of when lakes and rivers have a tide. You’re welcome.”

“Thank you,” Belle said. “But how am I still alive? Are you more powerful than my uncle?”

“If _**I** am_ , is immaterial,” the Nixie said. “*You* are.”

“Me? But how? I’m an ordinary person.”

 _No such animal._ “Then why aren’t you a statue littering the marshes?”

“I don’t know,” Belle admitted.

The Nixie cracked her own knuckles. “Do you want to leave here?”

“Yes please; not that you’re a bad hostess. But… I can’t go home.”

“Why not?”

“Because -”

“’Home’ has any number of meanings. Pick one yourself. Or would you prefer I float you to one?”

“I can choose,” Belle said. 

“You are sure?” the Nixie asked.

“Very.”

The Nixie considered her, flowing around her before asking, "Should I release you, Belle?"

"Yes, please," Belle said.

"Why?"

"Why?"

"For what reason, or in exchange for what?"

"I… I don’t really have anyth- Wait, my uncle. He -"

"You had gold floating on you. I took that as payment for not letting you die." _Most of it, I took._

"Thank you."

"Hm."

"So what do you want?" Belle asked.

"I don’t want your firstborn or your future wealth. I have no need of servants or toys. So I will set you loose to find yourself _before_ you find your love again; and in return, you will owe me a favor."

"Okay, I agree," Belle said.

"So swiftly?"

"I see nothing wrong with your offer."

 _Gods, were we ever **that** young?_ "Until the favor is called in, it has no expiration."

Belle nodded. "You could have me repay you today, tomorrow, or four score and eighty years from now."

"Exactly," the Nixie warned.

"I still have no problem with it."

"Then go. And take your bodyguard with you."

Belle looked down at her feet, at the unconscious woman lying there. "Who is she?"  
Belle saw a body floating there when she looked down at the water lapping at her feet. “Who is that?” she asked, not backing away - life at court and with Rumplestiltskin had taught her not to betray your fear.

“One of your uncle’s minions,” the Nixie said. “She leaped in after you.”

“Why would she do that?”

 _For a fan of the morals of the Heroic Age, you seem to have skipped the page on fealty. Then again, with your generation‘s and your parents’ generation’s habit of making deals on behalf of others, I shouldn’t be so surprised._ "Your uncle sent her after you. Right down the tower and into my water," the Nixie said.

"Is she dead?"

"Death is an irreversible state. But easily avoided.“ _And easily imitated._ “For her life, there is a task for you to do - take this to Irene Adler."

"Take -" Belle started to ask, but then saw a small cloth pouch appear in the Nixie’s hand. "What is it?"

"Not your concern what it is; your concern is only that it reaches her. Now take her and go, before I change my mind."

Heaving up the unconscious woman to lean against her and accepting the pouch from the Nixie, Belle thought, _And where will I find this Irene Adler?_

“Are you doing this out of some attempt at bravery, or because you thought you had a choice - now or when Rumplestiltskin came for you?”

“I had a choice,” Belle said.

“Perhaps.”

“I did!”

"Choice is illusive," the Nixie said. "When no pressure to choose is applied, few notice the options or feel any urge to choose. And there are yourself and Sim Chung.

"It was in my youth, when I was a water maiden attendant in the court of a noble River Dragon. He gave an ultimatum to a waterside community: he would destroy the area, unless a woman came to him of her own cognizance. They all said no.

"Then came Sim Chung, who said yes."

"I don’t see the problem," Belle said. "She saved -"

"She offered herself, cynics would rebut, because her father’s health depended upon the reward being offered to anyone who would agree to go with the River Dragon," the Nixie said, looking pointedly at Belle.

"You’re very cynical."

"I am under the impression you like that."

“So is your point that heroism is bribery with the reward omitted?" Belle asked.

"It could be interpreted so. If I tell you the fate of Sim Chung, that would again change your response. Now, I ask you again - why go to Rumplestiltskin?"

 _I wanted to be brave,_ Belle thought.

*****

Belle’s head broke the river’s surface and she walked to the shore, half-carrying her uncle’s knightess leaning against Belle. The water on their clothes fled back into the river. "Thank you, o Nixie," Belle whispered.

They were only a short distance from her uncle’s castle, Belle realized before she saw the two men on horseback approaching them. One, she did not recognize. The other was - "Frederick!"

"Belle," Frederick said. "This is Prince James, who ended my paused time as a golden statue."

"It was nothing," James said.

"Nothing?" Belle asked. "We all owe you a thanks."

"I only did what anyone would have done."

"Many have tried. _You_ succeeded." To Frederick, "We need to get to my uncle’s palace."

"Of course. Let’s get you both on a horse."

****IN STORYBROOKE:**

“Can I offer you a ride, Sheriff?”

Emma looked over and saw Dr. Whale driving alongside the curb. “Thanks, but no thanks,” Emma said.

“Relax, Sheriff, I’m not hitting on you. Just offering you a lift to the hospital. You need to see Sam, after all, right?”

“Sam?”

“Samuel Juan He,” Dr. Whale said. “Works in the psych wing.”

“Think you can get him to sit down with me?” Emma asked.

“Easy-peasy.”

“What if he’s not there?” she asks, remembering what that investigator told her.

“He’ll see you, Sheriff Swann. Don’t worry about that.”

“Okay,” Emma said, and got in his car. “Let’s go.”

*****

“So you are the new Sheriff?” Dr. He asked Emma at the Nurses’ Station in the Storybrooke Hospital where the two of them were supposed to meet.

“I am,” Emma said. “Emma Swan.”

“Samuel He,” Dr. He said.

“Nice to meet you. Though I have to admit, I didn’t think Storybrooke had a sanitarium.”

“That’s the way most of us like it. Part of the reason why we keep it under the hospital. I must say, our condolences on the loss of Sheriff Graham.”

"I was wondering if I could tell Miss May Noapte."

"I'm afraid I don't see a convincing reason why you should. Yes, her mental state isn't as fragile as those of some residing here, but that's not saying much."

 _To be honest, I'm surprised I hadn't passed by Storybrooke's sanitarium earlier,_ Emma thought. "She checked herself in, didn't she?"

"After heading our town's largest gang. Some say she's still calling the shots, from in here."

"Is she?"

"Not to my knowledge."

 _Okay._ "Miss Noapte is also listed as Graham's emergency contact," Emma said. "Her and a construction foreman I'm seeing next.

Dr. He shook his head. "Very well, Deputy - or Sheriff, as the case may be. Follow me. My office is this way."

 _To get the keys,_ Emma reasoned. When they got there, Emma looked around his office - at the calendar covered in pyramids from around the world, at the desk where medical texts were bookmarked with clippings for discounts at Granny’s.

**.~~IN ENCHANTED:**

_This is what I see when I leave home,_ Sinuhe mused. He, dressed in a naval uniform festooned with badges and medals; she, dressed in fine silk; Sinuhe and Granny were seated in King Midas’ throne room, listening alongside him to Prince David’s confession and admittance, and watched as the freshly-returned Midas came to a decision. "Give me a reason to _not_ hand you over to King George," King Midas said to David. "A reason which does not involve my daughter or Frederick."

 _Good to know good news still travels fast,_ David thought as he stayed kneeling before Midas. "King George needs your gold more than you need him," David said.

"Then why do I need you?"

 _A more than fair question. I was to have been a route, a reason for King Midas to give a measure of gold to King George._ "Because…" trying not to think of Snow, of his mother or the family farm, of King George mounted on the other side of the border with those knights. "Because I can help you, King Midas."

"Everyone wants to help me," was Midas’ unimpressed reply.

"Be that as it may, I actually _can_ help."

"On a quest?"

"Ask anyone - I always return with the prize," David said.

"And what if I sent you on a snark hunt?" Midas enquired.

"I will scour the countryside, my lord."

"Fealty _and_ a search? Very well. Go."

"Sire?"

"Your horse has been readied; go find me my snarks. My niece will accompany you, and you shall not lay a finger upon her except to save her life. Do you understand?"

"I understand. And I accept the honor."

 _Then go. Until today, this was a real quest. Now, with Belle’s plight, the snarkhunt is a guise, a cover. What is important is getting her to safety._ "Then go, so I may handle King George."

"At once," David said and was shown the way to his horse.

"Apologies," Midas said to his old acquaintances once David was gone. "I should have seen to you first. I am a poor host."

"Under no meaning of the words are you a poor host, Midas," Sinuhe said. "Family takes priority - we understand that perfectly."

Midas nodded and jested, "Then I should have spoken with David after Granny," _of whom I was an enemy when she was Arachne._

"It would all be fine by us," Granny said to Midas. "You stood by us when Sinuhe had his midlife crisis."

"It was not a crisis," Sinuhe said, "I simply felt it best to pack up the family and return us to my old home."

"Of course, dear."

"Your grandchild is here," Midas told them. "My daughter is giving her a tour."

"The poor dear probably looks lost," Granny said. "Not that we aren’t grateful -"

"On the contrary, Red looks as at home here as Abigail does."

"Then my request is simplified," Sinuhe said. "I was about to observe that, under the present circumstances, with the kingdoms being as war-ready as they are, we may need a room here."

"Of course," Midas said. "Use as many as you like."

"Only what we need," Granny corrected him.

"I did not misspeak," Midas said gently. "I ask you not to abuse the generosity of your host in that way. I am not _yet_ a pauper."

"And you never will be one," Sinuhe said.

"If wealth alone were all that was required, I would be secure. But even my own prosperity is tenuous at this moment," Midas told them.

"And that’s why you sought the alliance with King George," Granny said.

"Yes," Midas said. _If I did not need the alliance, it would be because my kingdom is well enough that I could defend Belle against the clerics and any others who come for her. But alas…_

"The ogres?"

"Belle, my favorite niece, made a deal to protect her father’s duchy, which sits between the ogrelands and my own. But that solution only lasts until the ogres go around the duchy. And then there are the other kingdoms."

"George, Frederick, and the list goes on," Sinuhe said. "King George’s army would have been a great help there."

"Yes. I almost prefer the depredations of chimeras and dragons, over the looming threat of human neighbors," Midas muttered.

"I don’t see how we can help," Granny said apologetically. "I doubt the old resistance members are in fighting form any longer. But we might know some traders who could stall the kingdoms."

Sinuhe nodded. "They’ve long been wondering when I was going to call in the favors they owe me - and with your neighboring kings having shortchanged them, my trader contacts will be all too happy to pitch in."

"Thank you. Thank you both," Midas told them.

"Have you any plans for a more permanent solution?" Granny asked.

"I do. It’s the very quest I’m sending David on. I am sending a message to the Arimaspeans."

"Are you sure that’s wise?"

Midas opened his mouth to answer, but one of his knights said from the room’s entrance, "My lord, your niece has returned."

 _I was already aware of that - thanks to Fredrick. But no doubt you have a reason for saying what you have said._ "Bring her here," Midas instructed him. "She can meet our guests." Seeing that the knight didn’t move, "Is there something else?"

"She is being pursued by a party of clerics. As she is within your walls, your niece has a head start."

"Send out knights to intercept and delay the clerics - whose are they? - while you will bring my niece into this room personally," Midas said. "Now."

"The clerics come from the direction of your niece‘s father‘s castle. I will go at once," the knight said.

*****

“My King,” Belle said to Midas when the knight escorted her into the throne room. To King Midas’ other guests, Belle said, “Sir Sinuhe and Lady…” trailing off because the knight had only had time to tell her one name en route to the throne room from where Belle had been waiting.

“Granny, dear,” Granny said, smiling. “Don’t stand on formality for my sake, child.”

“Not ‘king’ - call me ‘father,’” Midas instructed Belle. “The duke has failed in his guardianship of you, and I therefore am exercising my kingly right.”

 _I recall you said you would never do or say that,_ Granny thought. _Mind, the context was different: I was tied up and taunting you._

Belle nodded. “What would you have me do?” intending to defend her father later. _There was nothing he could have done. And the choice was mine._

“Make yourself at home,” Midas said. “You may have any room but that of Princess Abigail.”

“Thank you… father.”

“Now, my child, I have a few questions for you. To ascertain what has transpired.”

Belle’s face turned the appropriate color. “We never - Nothing happened between - I _only kissed_ Rumplestiltskin.”

King Midas blinked. “Your integrity has not, is not, and will not be in question, Belle.”

“Oh.”

“What were the terms of Rumplestiltskin’s deal?”

“He would save the duchy from the ogres,” Belle said. “I asked him if my friends would all be safe - when you read to me, father, on your visits to the duchy and mine to visit Abigail on playdates, your stories stressed verifying and double-checking.”

 _That is true,_ Midas knew. _Traditional tales from the old country, passed down from the pre-Hero times._

“Rumplestiltskin said, ‘I give you my word.’ Then I replied, ‘Then I give you mine: I will go with you, forever.’ Those were the terms.”

“ _You_ made the deal with him, then?” Sinuhe said.

Belle nodded. “Is that significant?”

“And he made you leave his castle?” Granny asked.

“He did.”

“Then he may have saved your life from magic’s cost,” Midas said. _Or at least delayed it._ “You may go. Rest, wander, explore.”


	5. Running

****IN STORYBROOKE:**

“Can’t be an accident,” Gwen said.

“Has to be,” Ruby said. “He was waking up. People stretch when they’re waking up.”

“What’s going on?” Ella asked, coming by now that the baby was asleep and with a sitter.

“They won’t just watch the scene and ogle the guy’s muscles as he turns into the Hulk,” Ke Mara said.

“We were just talking,” Ruby said to Ella.

“’Bout what?” Ella asked.

They replayed the scene in question for her on Mara’s cellphone: scientist Bruce Banner, with streaks of green across his skin, had rolled out of bed, and stretched his arms - one hand breaking through a wall.

“Doesn’t that look like an accident?” Ruby asked Ella.

“Deliberate,” Gwen Arri said.

“I don’t know,” Ella said.

“Nobody puts their hand through a wall by accident.”

_If its shoddy construction work, he might._

“Yeah, because as soon as he woke up, he had to think ‘hm, think I’ll unleash the kraken before I have breakfast,’” Ruby said.

Gwen replied, “Davy Jones has the kraken.”

“Maybe I should go,” Ella said quietly.

****IN ENCHANTED:**

Belle had looked around in most of Midas’ castle by now, remembering childhood games played with Abigail in these corridors and some of these rooms. And then Belle reached the Room Of Defeateds - a room with part of or all of the various things which had threatened Midas’ kingdom…all now safely turned to gold.

Houyhnhnms. Mapinguari. Dragon. Chimera. Humbaba. And others.

Belle was well into the room when she heard someone approach - three someones - and armored guards slipping and falling to the floor, unable to right themselves.

When they came into view, Belle saw the three men were clerics, agents of the High Church, the body devoted to the spiritual wishes of the Imperial Family. “You will come with us,” the leader said.

“No.”

“It’s futile to argue,” he said. “You will come, one way or another.”

"My uncle -"

"Your uncle is no matter," one cleric said to Belle. "We came for you, and we’ll be taking you."

"For what, a scourging?"

"Your presence is desired by the High Church. Your punishment can be reduced by standing for us, so we may admonish Rumplestiltskin for his crimes."

"He wouldn’t hold still for that," Belle remarked, and then she realized the only way it would happen. _You would use me as…as bait to catch Rumplestiltskin? No!_ "I won’t do it," Belle said.

"It’s already been decided."

A snuffling sound erupted, giving the clerics pause. "You said Midas has no pets," the lead cleric said to the others.

"He has never had any," a junior cleric said. "Does he, dukesdottir?" he asked of Belle.

Belle said nothing defiantly.

"Answer!" the head cleric said.

"Leave me!" Belle countered.

Strains of growls drifted around them.

"Still as stones," he said. “Be still as stones."

 _Priest magic,_ Belle knew. Whatever was there, would be rock now. "Stay back," she said.

"Rumplestiltskin will come for you. I don’t care what its reasons are - it will come."

"No," Belle breathed. "No, he won’t come. Not for anything."

"The holy fathers disagree with your opinion, and I obey them. Now -"

Growling. A trio of it from their left, a paired growl to their right.

Belle knew the accounts well enough to be terrified : _Have they unleashed the - No, they can’t be so stupid. Uncle Midas, did you?_

A blur of motion flexing overhead, flinging pellets of molten gold from expanding wings onto the clerics.

Gold was melting, dripping from the bodies of the chimera and of the mapinguari, bodies which flexed with newfound flexibility and life. The gold pooled on the floor and flowed towards Belle.

"No," Belle whispered, keeping herself flush against the gold-brick wall.

The youngest cleric was crushed flat by the mapinguari’s taloned paw.

"The charge has just changed," the cleric said. "It was Guilt of association. Now it is witchcraft."

"Call it off," another cleric said.

 _Why would I, even if I could?_ "Don’t you want me to die if I am a witch?" Belle asked as the chimera’s mouths tore another cleric to ribbons.

"You will be handled - my brothers will deal with you!" the lead cleric vowed.

It was the last thing he ever said.

Belle stared at the beasts - at the two hungry mouths of the mapinguari and the three salivating muzzles of the chimera - and waited for the inevitable ending.

*

Midas looked at the collapsed carcasses of the chimera and mapinguari, the beasts' souls having fled; Granny and Sinuhe standing beside Midas while knights and guards sifted through the remains of those dead from animal attack.

"Midas, good man, was this…?" Sinuhe asked.

"My power has never done such a thing as this, but I don’t deny I would have done this if I could have. The Church has certainly given me cause."

"My lord," one of the guards said. "There is no sign of your niece."

"A small mercy."

"That’s curious," Granny said. "Observe," pointing to the pooled gold. "It gathered and moved uphill," _**against** the slight tilt of the floor._

"There’s evidence her highness was standing there," that guard said.

Sinuhe and Granny looked at Midas, who shook his head. “That is not normal for anyone.”

"What did the Nixie do to Belle?” Granny asked.

“And what do we do with that Prince now?” Sinuhe asked Midas.

“Send him on his way.”

***IN STORYBROOKE:**

Henry frowned before he went back to re-read that paragraph. _Did I just never notice King Midas offering Prince Charming sanctuary and being politely turned down - or was that never in here before?_

Either was possible, he had to admit… it was such a small cluster of lines on the page, easy to skim right past them, even when reading intently.

*****

Belle knew instinctively where every other person from the other side was. She could sense them - her power did a headcount of everyone, and that helped wake her up further.

 _No. Not every one. Rumplestiltskin is beyond my sight._ But of the others…

Hyde was just barely able to stop himself from murdering tourists at the gas station. Dodo had gone insane, and taken to clubbing the unsuspecting. Several princes had formed a hunting party to get revenge. Grendel and Beowulf were doing more damage to property and bystanders than to each other. Arthur and Roland were brawling over a lady‘s attentions. _Someone got them to start remembering…_

Belle shook her head. _Some people are dangerous when they remember all of who they were. Others are dangerous when they remember one part and not the whole._

***IN ENCHANTED:**

Even the most secure castle has a bolthole for when there is no longer a viable option. Fortunately for Belle, she knew where the bolthole was. And she ran. Ran from the verdant fields behind her uncle’s castle to the ogre-scuffed wastes that had been orchards before her fateful deal. Ran as fast as she could as far as possible, stopping only when she felt a stitch in her side.

The ground here was grooved from scuffings and divots left by giant feet. _Ogre feet._

Belle chose to walk a while to catch her breath before she resumed running, keeping an ear tuned to pursuit the entire time.

After a while, she encountered a man pulling a small pushcart loaded with pine logs and pine branches. “Where is everyone?” Belle asked.

“The ogres had their victories over a month ago, and left for the season,” he said.

“But if it’s safe…?”

He smiled. “I came because I enjoy a business agreement with some ogres who have this use for an enthroned lord. For others, I assume the battle is too recent.”

“Why do you work with ogres? I mean, with all the kingdoms and duchies there are, surely you could find easier work.”

“That is possible. Though it assumes I wish for easier work.” And he chose to explain: “Once, I enjoyed the love of the Dragon Princess, daughter of the sea god. I grew homesick, and she sent me home. For all but myself, I had been gone for 400 years. I cannot even return to my love, for I lost the returning mechanism she gave me.”

 _Acceptance,_ Belle thought, _Resignation. Punishing himself even though the loss must have been accidental. But… why did he not strike a deal with Rumplestiltskin or someone so he could return? Did he fear what the cost would be, or was the reason political?_

“With an empty heart, I rose in authority until I was lord of a province; it was in that state I learned of a very beautiful woman. To see her smile, and hear her laugh, I traded places with her husband. I have furrowed fields and sold timber ever since.

“Do you have a name?” Belle asked.

“Urashima, who never used magic.”

* **IN STORYBROOKE:**

 _Nixie? Really?_ "You expect me to believe you?" Emma asked her, Emma leaning against the wall by the door. _Same claim Henry has, that nobody in town is anything but a fairytale figure who doesn't know the truth about themselves. The difference here is Miss Noapte doesn't see me as a savior._

"I do care if you believe me or not," Noapte said. "Either I am honest, or I am insane," May Noapte said from her spot on the sanitarium bed.

 _Well, at least she's honest - with me and with herself._ "And you wrote Henry’s book," Emma said.

"I gave to a schoolteacher. But yes, I had a role in it."

"And you’re still remembering more all the time?"

"Bit by bit, further and further into the past."

"But the past as depicted in that book."

May Noapte nodded.

"And all since your nervous breakdown a couple of years ago," Emma said.

"When has revelation ever been easy?" May asked her. "My walls broke, and I have been excavating ever since."

"Gave up a good job, as I understand it." _Crime lord._

"A distraction."

"Because this isn’t real?" Emma asked.

"On the contrary. Because it **is** ," May said.

"If you're the Nix-"

"I am not fully the Nixie of the Millpond or of elsewhere," Noapte interupted Emma. "I am as much of the Nixie as can exist in this world. I am still fully May Noapte as well."

"Fine. Don't you want everyone else in town to remember who they are?" Emma asked.

"And have the old rivalries return?"

"Like how you said you'd have to kill Dr. He if he remembered?"

Noapte nodded.

"Who is he?"

"The clues proved insufficient?"

Emma considered... The joke about 'de Nile', Dr. He's comment about living in the best possible place, ... "Moses? Ramses II?"

"Sinuhe the Sailor. I would have expected you to know that."

"Why, because I'm the daughter of Snow White?"

"And of King David. I thought you said you read the book."

"You haven't explained why you want everything to stay...hidden, _for want of a better word._ "What sort of rivalries?"

"In every story, there is a winner and at least one who loses. And if their loss means they die, realize that they have allies, relatives, and patrons. And they can all speak to higher powers."

"Like you."

"Me. Rumplestiltskin. Fairy Godmothers. Things worse than any lawyer joke.

"Now ask yourself, Little Emma - how many people of **this** world would give blood or children to achieve their aims."

**~~~~~IN ENCHANTED:**

Belle was chewing some berries and looking downslope at a fast clean river when she heard noise behind her. When she looked, she saw it was the clerics.

She tripped and fell, tumbling and rolling a long way down the slope. Painfully long, to Belle.

When she came to a stop finally, she found herself on the muddy shore of a broad river with no bridge or crossing stones in sight. There was only a brand-new rowboat tied to a stick on the shore.

"Hello?" Belle called out as she pushed herself up. "Hello?" she asked, wincing at all the places that hurt. She could see the clerics on their way, running down the slope, keeping on their feet the whole way.

A man rose a little from the river. "Clerics? Near my water? What reason could you give for what is perilously close to trespass?" he asked the clerics.

"She is ours. Back away," one cleric told him.

"Is that so? She is a cimmaron, a runaway?" And then he looked at Belle and asked, "This is so?"

"No, no it’s not so," Belle said. "They want to kill me. Worse than that, they want me to kill someone."

"Interesting," the river man said. To the clerics, "Who is she, and who is your intended victim this time?"

One cleric said, "A woman whose guardian has forfeited any authority to raise her or make decisions regarding her."

"Thus leaving her for the church?" asked in a voice anyone could hear the laughter in.

"You don’t want to cross us, river thing."

He raised his eyebrows and said to Belle, "Get in the boat."

"W-" she started to ask.

"In or die. Your choice."

Belle got in the boat.

Seconds later, the entire slope collapsed, the clods of dirt and grass sinking beneath a now-broadened river.

Sensing things about them as his water pulled them down and under, the river man said, "Oh good, you boys grew up around horses," and turned to Belle. "Cover your ears."

"Why - What are you going to do?" Belle asked.

A final bubble of air escaped where the clerics had been pulled underwater.

The river man shrugged. "Nevermind. Sometimes they scream."

Belle tried not to let her fear show.

“You’re Belle. I am a River Demon.

"You attempted to lift Rumplestiltskin’s curse," the River Demon said.

"I did," Belle said.

"Did you or do you know what the outcome would have been?"

"He would be free."

"And you would be evil," the River Demon said, watching for her reaction."

 _I… I’d be evil?_ "It would be acceptable." _At least he’d be free. That’s true love, right - taking their burden upon yourself?_

"Interesting. Most would deny any prospect of becoming an evil thing. Yet you would be congenial to that fate?"

"As long as Rumplestiltskin’s happy," Belle said.

"Happy? Oh, he would be furious."

"Because I saved him?"

"Because, in part, of what he has gone through."

The River Demon waited until Belle had ruminated on that for a while longer, and, when it appeared she was about to ask a question, "Why didn’t you take the boat?" he asked her.

"It wasn’t mine," Belle said.

"A considerate human."

"I try to be."

"And?"

"What?"

"And what do you want?"

Time with Rumplestiltskin had cautioned her: "I don’t want anything."

"Everyone does."

A little trick Rumplestiltskin had taught her: "What do you think I want?"

"Would you like it alphabetically, chronologically, or -"

Belle interrupted him. "Who are you?"

"To talk to you like this? I am a River Demon."

"I’ve never seen a demon before."

"True. But there _is_ evil in you."

"That’s not possible." _Did Rumplestiltskin curse me? Were those clerics right? NO!_

"Evil and gold, locked in a battle for your skin." He watched her facial expressions. "And you are aware of this."

"My uncle did it to save me," Belle said.

"I am familiar with Midas," the River Demon said. _Nor is it all Midas‘ gold._ "Would you care to move on without incurring bargains; or do you wish me to help you in a way which increases your uncle’s debt, or decreases it?"

 _Three options?_ "Decreases. What do I need to do?"

 _Every other human would take one of the other options._ "His Majesty is not alone in preferring the days of the Empire. Revive it - and I will be in your debt, with Midas’ debt erased."

"And if I can’t?" Belle asked.

"It depends how hard you try."

Belle nodded. "Does it cost anything to ask for suggestions on where to start?"

"Neither to ask nor to receive an answer. Go into ogre lands, and help someone who needs help?"

"How do I get there?" Belle asked, and the rowboat bumped against what had been the far shore.

"You start with a step," the River Demon said.

Belle stood up and was about to step out of the rowboat, when the River Demon said, "Wait."

"Yes?" Belle asked, wondering if he was going to give her something easier to do.

"Why did you go with Rumplestiltskin?"

"Because I gave my word."

"A vow keeper; good. And what prompted the deal?"

"To keep my land safe from ogres."

The River Demon smiled. "Repetition."

"I’m sorry?"

"Rumplestiltskin became Evil so his family would be protected. Has he told you how that ended?"

"No. He mentioned his son left like his wife did."

"And this told you what?" curious.

"They died," Belle said.

"An incorrect assumption. Who wants to live with evil, away from all friends and family?"

"I was willing to."

"Then your character is stronger than Her Majesty Snow White’s blighted father. I have no further questions," the River Demon said, granting her a sweeping bow as Belle stepped off the boat. "Though sadly, I have mentioned he who is an apostate from his loved ones, and thus my life is forfeit."

"Rumplestiltskin?"

"No," the River Demon said, and was sucked into the depths of the river. Seconds later, horse heads began to float up to the river’s surface. The horses rose up and stood on the water, about to charge.

Belle ran.

*****


	6. Rivers, fields, and Regina

*****

Belle stopped for breath, leaning against a tree trunk. The sun was behind her now, casting the trees’ shadows ahead of her. _But where is mine?_ Belle thought with a start.

She tried to remember when she had seen it last - and found she couldn’t recall. _I wasn’t looking for it,_ Belle admitted to herself. _It could have left on the bridge, at the river, in the water… Or with Rumplestiltskin. Is a shadow the price of forever?_

***MORNING:**

Emma knocked on Regina’s door. Never liked this part, she thought to herself. And it isn’t just because this is what the cops do. And I’m the cop here.

Henry opened the door. “Emma!” he said. “Wait, what are you doing here?”

“Is your mother here?” Emma asked.

Henry looked at her, trying to divine her purpose.

“I’m here, Sheriff,” Regina said, coming up behind Henry, placing her hands gently but protectively on Henry’s shoulders. “You wanted to see me?”

“I’ve got some bad news, Madam Mayor. You may want to sit down for this,” Emma said. “Henry, can you give us a minute?”

Henry nodded.

“Now then, what’s this all about?” Regina asked Emma.

“There was a murder last night,” Emma said. “The victim was Tabitha Mills.”

Regina nodded slowly. “We weren’t close, but yes, I knew her. She was my sister-in-law.” Regina took a breath. “Can I ask…how did she die?” _You said it was a murder, but I’ve learned never to underestimate May’s connections, even when she’s locked away as securely as she is._

“Somebody tore her open. Made it look like an animal attack, only… Only there are no animals that big.” _Unless Jurassic Park is part of the fairy tale world Henry talks about._

***IN ENCHANTED:**

The sun was rising. _I ran all night?_ thought Belle with a start.

At first she thought the growling came from her stomach: being minor nobility, she had so rarely been hungry before her interludes within Rumplestiltskin’s prison.

Then she saw the wolves approaching, growling. “Please, get back,” Belle said to them. “Leave me alone.” _Let me mourn my shadow in peace._

“Why would we do that?” asked a man walking among the wolves.

“I -” Belle began to say but stopped when he pulled out a sword and used it to draw a circle in the ground around her, and then he stepped back, he and his wolves waiting and watching. Belle recognized what she was seeing…recognition of something from the bravery tales. “I’m safe inside this circle until I answer you, because then I’m safe inside and outside the circle. Is that so, Lord Romulus?”

“Then you also know,” Romulus said, “that if you leave the circle before answering my question to my satisfaction, your life is forfeit. Now… Answer.”

“I am niece of King Midas, daughter of Duke Mo. My name is Belle.” _I suppose I have to remember to reverse them from now on._

“The girl traded for safety,” Romulus said.

“I agreed to it, over objections,” Belle said.

“Then you are my guest. You may step out, to safety.”

Belle stayed where she was.

“Your choice. Then _I_ have a question for you, Belle : why are you not in Rumplestiltskin’s possession?”

“He…” Belle said, not sure which was worse: ‘he kicked me out’ or ‘he banished me.’ She settled on, “He let me go.”

"So you came from Rumplestiltskin’s, did you?" Romulus asked Belle, as if to confirm it. Belle nodded. "And you want to get back in his good graces?"

"I would like that," Belle said.

"You want all to be forgiven, all hard feelings washed away."

Belle nodded, noting cautiously that Romulus was approaching her, closer and closer.

He drew his short sword and, blade tip nestled so it would slide between his ribs *just so*, placed the sword grip in Belle’s hands. "Push. That’s all you need do."

Belle’s first instinct was to drop the gladius sword and refuse - but then she remembered what the Nixie had said about knowing the context. "Why?" Belle asked. "Why would Rumplestiltskin want you dead?"

"I killed his son." _Red Riding Hood’s father._

"And his wife? Did you kill her, too?"

"Never met the woman. *She* wasn’t spying on a bathing woman."

"What?" _Did Rumplestiltskin know? Or did you spare him from knowing the How?_

"Someone had told him that magical people will tell you anything if you steal their skin while they’re bathing." _Back then, the Kings Of White were neutrals, so I leveraged that to bring White to ally with Midas. I still remember the look on the White Queen’s face when she first saw Rumplestiltskin - and back then, she was not at all skilled at magic._ "I haven’t left King Midas’ lands since then."

Belle recalled her papa asking how Rumplestiltskin had gotten past what Uncle Midas had had a hand in forming - the walls.

***IN STORYBROOKE:**

“No,” Thomas Kaiser said.

“Please? You have to,” Ruby said.

Thomas stopped and looked down at her. “You asked me for a job. I gave you that, because you have excellent references and I know your family. I let you work in the office on the condition that your performance in the diner does not suffer. Do not ask for more.”

“I want to know if you know who my grandfather is. Nothing more.”

“And if I tell you? What then? I assume you’ll go find him.”

Ruby nodded. “In my spare time. Not when I’m supposed to be working.”

Kaiser sighed. “I know your grandfather and your great-grandfather.”

“Is my father really dead?” Ruby asked.

“Yes. A hunting accident.”

“And their names…?”

“That wasn’t what you asked.” Tom checked his watch. “Lunchtime’s over, back to work.”

Ruby growled, but complied.

***IN THE ENCHANTED:**

At one point in their conversation, “And speaking of demons… beware of my enemy the Snark,” Romulus advised.

Belle frowned. “I’ve never seen anything that says snarks were demons,” she said.

“Reading.”

“Yes.” _Of course._

“Have you ever read anything of the Evil One? The entity which is Rumplestiltskin and his predecessors?”

“No.”

“But you learned firsthand?”

“A little.”

“Learned the way I know snarks,” Romulus said.

_You love a snark?_ “Perhaps we could speak to one, at least for a little while.”

"There’s no way to get the Snark here for a talk," Romulus said. "She never shows her face, only her mischief. Sometimes she writes down her legal opinion on something, leaves it out for someone in need to find it."

Belle remembered how Rumplestiltskin would always drink with her, particularly when it was from those fine porcelain cups. She remembered how her uncle Midas would always make time to have tea with her when she was a girl and visiting his palace. _I have an idea how to capture her,_ Belle thought.

*

Belle poured the tea into little cups, hoping this would work - and hoping they didn’t have to be porcelain to serve the purpose.

"What do you want?" a woman’s voice asked Belle.

"I am having tea," Belle said. "Would you care for some?"

"Tea is a gesture."

"Tea is tea."

“Everything has significance and meaning.”

Belle thought of the chipped teacup. “But that’s only personal signifigance.”

“Everything starts. People instigate a lot, and things are very significant to them. They give it meaning.”

“Does it matter if I’m not aware of any significance?” Belle asked.

“Then why tea?” the voice asked her.

“I like tea. Everyone I know likes tea. I can make something else if you’d prefer.”

The silence brooded. Then, “Tea…is more than fine,” she said and stepped out from the cover of the forest’s shade and shadows.

“I’m Belle.”

“I am the Snark.”

“You are?” Belle asked.

“We were never extinct.”

“Oh no, I mean I always thought ‘snark’ was a race, a society.”

“Also true. I am a snark. Next to no one encounters multiple snarks, so treat it as my name as well.”

“Your real name is secret?” Belle asked, having read of things like secret names.

“My other name is long discarded,” the snark said, stepping as far as the stone Belle was using for a table, and with care and caution picked up a cup. “Why are you offering me this?” remembering a king who once captured her with the aim of eliciting a spell from her.

“What do you mean?”

“I am no friend of yours.”

“Can we be friends?” Belle asked.

“Snarks have no friends,” the snark said.

“Can I be your friend, at least?”

“Not possible,” Snark said firmly, decisively.

“Why not?” Belle asked.

_Answer her question, and she’ll think I’m dodging the question._ "We have had the discussion for a long time, Belle," Snark said. "What would we be like without our rigorous training, hardships, and deprivations? Now I see the answer standing before me.”

"I’m not a snark," Belle said.

"You’re punishing yourself. I need no powers to deduce that."

"Why would I be punishing -"

"Denial. How human of you - I may blame your parents. And thus I blame myself.” And she watched the light go on in Belle’s eyes.

"What makes you think I’m a snark, Great Snark?" Belle asked.

"I know my own daughter," Snark said.

Belle’s eyes were wide. “You and Duke Mo…?”

Snark made a noise of disgust.

"I’m…"

"Also, you are co-heir to the throne of Midas,” said the snark.

“We are snarks? Abigail as well?" Belle asked, breathing a sigh of relief.

"A child of politics." _Midas handed you to his in-laws for them to raise, unable to think of a greater gesture for peace. While he kept the other one, to train her for the throne._

"While I am a child of love," Belle said.

"Snarks cannot love, child. We are superb imitators, however."

"No, no that can’t be." _Rumplestiltskin would be laughing his breeches off at this news, no doubt._ "Does…does my father know?"

The Snark raised an eyebrow. "Midas was the snark assigned to reign in the troublemakers in this corner of the Empire." _Before the Empire ceased to be._ "I was part of his unit."

"Unit?"

"A pack of hunting dogs," the Nixie said. Belle turned and saw her standing half in the river; she turned back, and the Snark had vanished. "The analogy holds better than a squad of knights."

"No!" Belle said, turning on the Nixie, stomping towards her, but stopping short of the waterline.

_Smart,_ the Nixie thought.

"King Midas is a gentle man, a kind-hearted -"

"Have you met his enemies?"

Belle frowned. "Are you one of them ?"

"I have no argument with the Empire. Point of fact, I gave Midas a gift - I pointed him to the wolves."

"The wolves?"

“You have already met Romulus the once king,” the Nixie said. “As Midas would have, eventually.”

Belle frowned.

“And there it is - the question you fear to ask: ‘if it would have happened anyway, what use am I?’”

“It’s a good question,” Belle said.

“Had Rumplestiltskin come to your castle when you were a child, would you have done the same as you did?”

“No,” Belle said.

“And that is why.”

“Thank you.” _Thank you for not speaking in riddles._

“You’re tired, Belle. You have been through a great deal.”

“Yes?”

“You tried and got further than most; return to me the letter, and you can go home.”

Belle just looked at her.

“The church and its agents will not bother you any longer,” the Nixie said.

“That’s not it,” Belle said. “I promised you I would deliver the message, and I will!”

“Very well,” and dropped splashlessly into the river’s current.

“Goodbye?” Belle said.

****IN STORYBROOKE:**

Looking out across the entirety of the park, Emma could almost let herself be lulled into believing that there was absolutely nothing wrong with anything here in Storybrooke, that there wasn’t anything rotten in things going on, and that Emma hadn’t called the FBI for help with someone who might be a witness - or who might have abducted Kathryn Nolan.

"Lovely day. Deceptively so," was the greeting Emma had been waiting for.

"Thanks for agreeing to meet with me," Emma Swan said.

"The Federal Bureau of Investigation is always happy to lend a hand to our sisters in other branches of law enforcement. I’m no different in that regard," Sara Um said. "Particularly since you thought to ask first."

"As opposed to thinking to ask forgiveness later," Emma said. _Which I nearly did anyway._

Sara nodded. "I’ll clear the red tape, and you can talk to Tom Kaiser within the day." _Strange you mentioned him as a suspect - you thinking vendetta?_

"Thanks."

"Kaiser’s gotten his hands in trouble plenty of times, but he wouldn’t bother with a housewife," Sara said.

“How well do you know Kaiser?” Emma asked.

“Well enough to know you’re fishing, Sheriff. And despite that, I’m still willing to help you in your investigation.”

“O-ka-”

“*I’ll* talk to him,” Sara said. _It’s been a while since we were in the same neck of the woods._

***In Therapy:**

"Part of why prophecies are kept so vague is so they can’t be avoided," May Noapte had once confided to Archie. "Were I to say you would die in July, you might wear armor vests and avoid those places perfect for knifing. But you would not think to avoid an elephant breaking wind, or a newfound lover for whom you would change everything about yourself.”

Archie took notes while May Noapte continued her account of the world which is according to her, equally as real and present as this one. From what Archie could tell, May’s delusion - the reason she was always strapped down on her hospital bed - was a more intense version of Henry’s.

Which brought him back to what she had just said. "Mule ears?" Archie asked.

"Yes," May Noapte said.

"I don’t think it makes sense - even in the context of… what you’re telling me," avoiding using the word ‘story,’ "to have puppet kings wearing donkey ears," _whether they’re real or fake ears._

"As opposed to wearing part of a dryad? Yes, that’s so much nobler."

"So you’re saying that the symbolism of the mule ears, is rooted in the history and mythology there, much as the importance we attach to laurel wreathes stems from Greek mythology?"

May watched him.

"Yes?"

"Do you like it? Or is a better question ‘Do you enjoy it?’ ?" she asked him.

May and Henry were in agreement about what Archie was in the other world. "Do I enjoy being human?" Archie asked.

"Unpleasant as the thought is, yes," May said.

"I like it very much. I imagine being a cricket had downsides." _Not exactly something I could say to Henry, though._

"It could have been worse."

"Worse?" Archie said.

*****

In The Hospital Basement:

"I have some questions," Regina said to Patient Four through the slot in the door. Patient Four, who, it was said, used to answer to the name of ‘Dee Bell.’

"Questions deserve answers," Patient Four said. "But nothing easy," as she slung herself over, feet on the floor, and walking to the door. A slight push and -

And it opened. A should’ve-been-locked door opened. How? Was the question crossing Regina’s mind…right until Patient Four shot out an arm and gripped Regina’s throat tightly, pushing the Mayor against the cold hard wall. And then let go, letting Regina slide down to the floor.

"I will deal with the Nixie," Patient Four said in Regina’s voice, and walked away, to leave the hospital, Regina worried dimly as memories came flooding up, unbidden…

**_Regina’s POV -_ **

_"For as long as…" Gold says. You’re my best chance at convincing Henry to give up thinking his book is reality. At the worst, you say you’re someone like the Woodsman or the merchant who sold Jack some magic beans; I can work with that. It might even defuse some of this in Henry’s mind._

_‘On Earth’? So you have an idea what I’m going to ask you. Doesn’t matter: I can’t back down now. I never have backed down before, can’t start now. "What about…other places," I ask, doing a good job of keeping the disbelief out of my voice._

_Mr. Gold’s smile broadens and grows, like that of a Cheshire cat. And then he says, "Rumplestiltskin." You’re mocking me, I almost say - but he would claim to be entirely serious. Even if he’s lying, he’d say that._

_Dear Lord, please let him be mocking me. It wouldn’t be the first time, by Gold or by anyone else. And Henry’s belief is an open secret in Storybrooke. I’m accustomed to the mocking, spoken and silent._

_But if Mr. Gold isn’t mocking - if he truly is - or believes himself to be - Rumplestiltskin - then dammit. Then maybe Henry was right, and I’m the Evil Queen._

_The person nobody wants to be._

_"…your Majesty," Mr. Gold addresses me. Or who Henry - and he? - believe me to be._

…and…

_"There were some things I omitted," May Noapte|the Nixie said._

_"Such as what?" Regina wanted to know._

_"That each heart is tuned to a different degree - some crumble sooner than others."_ And I started you off with a more durable one, so you would not be suspicious of their lethal aspect.

_"Sheriff Graham died because of that omission!"_

_Nixie shrugged. "_ I _merely mentioned where to find the gun._ You _fired it. This blame is not on my head, not on my shoulders, not on my hands."_

_"You told me the contents of the repository would keep Storybrooke from bubbling over."_

_"I never lied to you, Regina Mills. But even a leash may choke if the hands that hold it is tight enough," Nixie said._

_"What kind of game do you think you’re playing?" Regina asked._

_"Chess. You are a piece on the board. Like you used to be."_ Before you became Queen.

_Regina knew that, I’m not Queen. I’m not. She had always been mayor. She had almost always been Henry’s mother._

And she couldn’t move while Belle was leaving.


	7. They Awaken

**.~~~~IN ENCHANTED:**

“What do you know of snarks?” Snark asked Belle.

“They’re people drawn from the wilds and taught to be judges and spies,” Belle said.

“Concise.” _Instinctive in us is sure and certain knowledge of how to kill and dispose of bodies. That is the baseline for we snarks. A line you seem to exist nowhere near, Belle._

“Snarks can only fight things which think. Soldiers, magicians, demons, anything able to form a thought or a strategy,” Belle said.

“Read that in a book, did you?”

“Not that.” _Most anything else, yes,_ Belle thought.

“Then I shall tell you this : Snarks are unscathable,” the snark informed Belle. “Magic flows off us without effect.”

“Then…”

‘You’re strange,” Snark said. “Then again, so was your father at your age.”

“If you’re really my mother…” Belle said, her voice so full of curiosity.

“You want to know why I gave you to your father, and your father gave you to his brother-in-law.”

“Please?”

“Very well. This should make a good test of your nerves et al.

“You and your sister were barely a month old when I underwent the change, which can be a dangerous time for anyone nearby. I exiled myself, leaving you in Midas’ care. To bolster the ties with the natives, and thereby cut the recurring rebellions at the knees, Midas entrusted his brother-in-law the Duke Mo to raise you. He kept your sister for himself and his wife. The Duke’s wife raised you as a daughter. Then came Rumplestiltskin.”

“Thank you,” Belle said, processing all that. _I have a sister? Is she Abigail? She has to be, right?_

“And now, my turn.”

*

The beatings were strikes across Belle’s arms and back, blows from the Snark’s fists, but it felt to Belle like she was being swiped at and whipped by a sapling.

"Stop," Belle asked her.

"Why?" the Snark asked. "What reasoning are you hoping will motivate me?"

"You’re my mother."

"Nature, then? Are you a snark or are you in love with Rumplestiltskin?"

"Both!"

 _Just how strange are you? Or is this from what the duchess taught you?_ "Can’t. Not possible," she said.

"Why not?" Belle asked, only to be dropped to the ground.

"You really don’t understand how magic works," the Snark said.

"All magic has a price," Belle said. "I know that."

"If two humans come to an agreement, one of them may renege; for this, they have seconds and witnesses, to avenge them should the perceived need arise. Magic exacts a cost, entirely proportional to what is shaped into doing. To those who will try to avoid payment, the world handles them without proportionality." _And with how magic works with normal snarks…_

"But true love -"

She interrupted Belle. "Rumplestiltskin’s power is itself an exchange. Kill your predecessor, and take his power. And become cursed."

 _That‘s what the River Demon said._ "I -"

"The spell does not care what you were defeating -- the curse and the man are bound, one and the same. Look at your arms."

Belle looked at them, and the swirling lines and blotches. No marks of any sort from the Snark’s strikes.

" _Now_ , what do you understand happened?"

 _Oh my…_ Belle thought. "I kissed Rumplestiltskin. Our love began to vanquish his curse…I didn’t know that some of the curse was transferring to me because of that."

The Snark nodded. "Yes." _We snarks have always had fingers that grab and hands that snatch. In you, I suppose it‘s unconscious._

"I didn’t know." _He pulled away - he didn’t want me to be burdened with his curse._

"Now you do. Tell me, Belle, are you a snark, or do you love Rumplestiltskin? Which suite of powers will you have for the rest of your life?”

“Why do I have to pick?” Belle asked.

Snark looked at her. “You want to be a snark with the love of Rumplestiltskin?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want him powerless?”

“I want him happy,” Belle said.

“Then you would have to love him without taking the power of the Evil One from him. And while we snarks are mighty, we aren’t **that** powerful.”

“Can we _become_ that powerful?”

“By a boon, by a gift,” the Snark said. “A bargain with or a favor from a higher form of life.”

“Like a holy man?” Belle asked.

“If you mean clerics, they worked for us. If you mean _holy_ , better to go to the horse‘s teat - the highest Powers.”

“The Empress?” Belle asked.

“Once, she was All. Now, there are lesser things to which men bow their heads. The Nixie, the Noble Dragons, the curse-layers of the ocean expanses, the demons, and some magicians,” remembering a certain Queen.

“Would they help me?” Belle asked.

“Voluntarily? That’s a bargain,” the Snark said.

Belle knew two interpretations of that statement. “Who do you suggest I ask?”

“You and I,” _for all your strangeness,_ “our kind bend our knees to only one person. Follow me,” and she led down a vale and around a barren lake and up a hill missing its far side. As they ascended, "You *have* tasted of desire. No doubt you found it nice. But do you think the world will end in fire, or in ice?"

“Why do things have to end?” Belle asked.

“All things end, even Imperial Reigns, even love. That’s why it’s a mercy our snarkish kind were spared that horror.”

They reached the summit, Snark standing with ease atop jagged jumbled stones, Belle keeping her shod feet safely on the grass.

"Here we are," stopping at the edge of the woodland. Below them, waves crashed against vertical rocks. “Observe,” and handed Belle a telescope from - Belle had no idea where it had been a moment ago. “There,” she said to Belle. “Do you see that cliff, so like this one, but facing us?”

" _This_ is the Imperial Palace?" Belle asked, looking through the telescope at the one-rook rickety shack on the other shore.

"Yes."

"Home of the Royal Family of the Empire?" _The Sheherazad Dynasty._

"It was."

"Where the Sheherazads would issue commandments?" Belle asked.

"Did no one tell you about Queen Alice?"

 _Of how she tried to bring the Empire back from its deathbed…and in the process went insane?_ "Yes, they did."

"And now you see with your own eyes what happens when one of the great Power goes mad."

"I’m seeing," Belle said, incredulous. "How has this gone untended?"

"Nobody comes out here but me. And you now, this once at least."

"But the kings. Surely they -"

"Are too concerned with their plots of land, to bother trying for a prize such as this."

"How do we get inside?" Belle asked.

"The doors need one Sheherazad, or a dozen ogres."

"What about magic?"

"Proofed against all magics except for that of ogres and of Sheherazads." _Because the ogres remained loyal, unlike those who declared themselves to be kings._

“If I went to the Sheherazads, would they help?”

“You would have to get there first,” the snark said.

“I will.” _I’m heading in that direction already._

**.~IN STORYBROOKE:**

Mary Margaret opened her door, and saw - "Mr. Gold. What a surprise.” Gold was standing beside the fallen - _dead?_ \- body of Mr. Hinterman, the man who was practically Gold’s shadow. “Is there something I can help you with?"

"On the contrary, literally," Mr. Gold said. "It’s a little something you asked me once to help you with."

"I’m sorry, I’m afraid I don’t remember anything like that."

 _Oh, no!_ Henry thought at the same time that Mr. Gold said, "That’s precisely what you asked for, as it happens."

"Uh, I should be getting home," Henry said, hoping to leave.

Mr. Gold said to him, "By all means, have a seat. Please."

Henry sat down on the couch.

Mr. Gold smiled. "That’s the fun thing about curses. They spread."

***That Night:**

"One night I was a butterfly," May Noapte recited, "fluttering happily around. Then I awoke, and found I am a man. But what am I in truth? A man who dreams he is a butterfly, or a butterfly who dreams he is a man?"

Belle opened the hospital room door, closing it behind her, and then stepping halfway to May’s bed. Belle’s hands turned the color of quality gold, and she then peeled those gloves off and set them down.

"I know why you are here," May said. "I simply thought to let it end with poetry."

"You will end," Belle agreed. "I wasn’t strong enough to open the door to our world - but this will be sufficient."

"That’s why I’m here," the Nixie said through May. "But when you tell my story, omit this part."

"Very well," Belle said and brandished the knife.

*

Agent Um and Mr. Kaiser strolled hand in hand along the edge of the construction site slated to be Storybrooke’s new playground. “Looks good,” Sara said.

“Yes you do,” Tom said.

“I meant your crew does good work.”

“I wouldn’t employ them if they didn’t.”

“Quality over speed.”

“It’s not like the play tower would have been built in a day anyway. And have you given any thought to what I asked you?”

Sara laughed. “That’s a fast topic shift.”

Tom shrugged.

“And yes, I have. Ye-” and they both paused for two seconds. “Huh,” flexing her fingers.

"I… That was odd," Kaiser said, most of his old memory restored. But not the vital piece. "Remembered fighting some warlord named Alexander. Kicked his butt."

Sara nodded. "I saw you do that." _Then I told King Midas all about it._ "I…"

"Sara?"

"There’s something else," she told him, and held out her arms.

He held her hands, and she pulled him close. "We can get through this, too." _We got through everything else."_

 _Not this. Never this, Romulus._ She held him close and whispered in his ear.

"Boo…?" was his dying word. He never saw the knife that did him in.

She was gone before his body was cold.


	8. Going by sea and a baby

*****

“It’s strange you never realized it,” Gold said to Henry and Mary Margaret. “You must have read that book how many times while it was in your possession? Did you never notice that Prince Charming’s mother says ‘True love follows the ring - I had it with your father, and then with you.’ And you were right, that true love can break the curse affecting this town. Yet you never went that last little bit, adding it all up."

“What was the last part?” Mary Margaret asked him.

“A child’s love. The reason Henry knows so much about what most of this town thinks a joke.”

“So she *does* know she’s the Evil Queen!” Henry said.

“Nope, it’s all you. She’s still Regina, not the Queen,” Gold said.

“I don’t believe you,” Henry said stubbornly.

“You are a child, Henry Mills,” Rumplestiltskin said. “And like so many children, you fail to do what is important, opting for what you want to do, instead.

“The Queen was never in danger of becoming her old self.”

“Then…?” Mary Margaret asked.

“Contrary to common opinion, we do not in fact have to wait for the stars to be right. Only for the **Greats** to walk the Earth,” Mr. Gold said.

“Why are you here?” Henry asked. “Are you a great?”

“What are the physical laws?” Gold asked.

“An object in motion must remain -” Mary Margaret started to say.

“Not that set. More fundamental.”

“That was one of the Newtonian Laws. Nothing’s more fundamental than that.”

“That’s where you’d be wrong,” Mr. Gold said with a smile. “Hmm, can’t even blame the school system.”

“So who are you?” Henry asked.

“You really want to know?” Rumplestiltskin asked.

**.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~IN ENCHANTED:**

Belle stayed on the path as she made her way tavernwards, avoiding the wild animals all she could - particularly the mousy ones which ran about on noses longer than all the rest of their bodies.

The path led her to a hitching post whose horses were all gone, at least for now. Instead, a few young women Belle’s age were standing around one post…and talking to swans.

“Hello?” Belle asked.

“Hi,” said the nearest woman.

Asking on a hunch, “Are you the swan sisters?”

“Always have been, for as long as there’s been more than one of us,” said the second swan sister.

“I met your father,” Belle said.

“Is he still scrounging to get by?” one sister asked. 

A second sister said, “Shush. Things may have turned around for Papa.”

Said one of the swan girls to Belle, “Some of our sisters wanted to return to our old home. But with how much Father gave up to bring us here… it feels like disloyalty to spit on what he’s done.”

“If I can ask,” Belle asked, “why did your family emigrate?”

“Dad was looking for work,” said the second sister. “And there was the hope one of his girls might catch a prince’s eye.”

“As Papa put it, ‘if a demon can be royalty in a human kingdom, my swans most certainly can,’” the first sister said.

“A demon?” Belle asked.

“Snow White. Granddaughter of King Asmodeus.”

“What, you believed the propaganda about king White’s first wife being dead” asked the fourth sister. 

“Actually, I never gave it much thought,” Belle said.

“Really?” asked the first swan sister.

“I’m afraid so.”

“That’s lucky and sad,” said the third sister. “The disconnect nouvelle-royalty can afford to do.”

“You want to hang out?” the second swan asked. “Run with us a while?”

“I’d like to, but I promised I would deliver this letter,” Belle said.

“I’ll deliver it for you,” said the first swan.

“Or we could all fly you in and out,” the fourth swan suggested.

“Thank you, and I appreciate your thoughtful offers, but…” Belle said.

“Stickler for the rules,” said the first swan. “Not a good thing in the age of heroes.” So they walked to the tavern together.

At last they arrived at the tavern, and Belle hesitated before laying a finger on the door. _Nothing they can do is a farthing’s shadow of Rumplesiltskin’s capability,_ Belle reminded herself. She opened the door and said, "I’m looking for a ship to take me home." _Rumplestiltskin’s home as well._ "Is Captain Odysseus of the  Whale here?" as the swans either left or waited outside.

"I am he," a lone voice said in the room which was the entirety of the tavern. "Also I am known as Nemo; please address me by that name."

 _I'm sure there's a story explaining why._ Belle came in, noticing that there was no one else here. "May I ask, where is your crew, Captain?"

"Present and correct," Nemo said. "I am captain and crew entire of the _Whale_. I had a First Mate, but Ishmael left me."

"I’m sorry to hear that," Belle said, inspecting one chair before sitting at his table. _From all I read as a young girl, the most likely place to find Miss Adler would be…_ "Can you sail me to the dockyards?" 

"Now? Can’t do. Tide’s wrong. It’ll be good to go by the time the mission returns, though. Care to make a deal?"

"I only make deals with one man, Captain, and you are not he," Belle said.

 _Ah, idealism. Or love._ "Is that why you have what looks to be a curse slithering across your hands and throat?" Nemo replied.

Belle didn‘t draw her hands back or cover her neck. "And what is your name?"

"Nemo."

" _Nemo_ means _No One_ ," Belle said, having learned it from a tutor sent by her uncle, King Midas. Some part of Belle still didn’t believe what the snark had told her…at least not about all of it.

"And that I am. Unless I am preaching; the only time I may set foot on land, would be to find a woman who would love me. Not you."

"Good,” Belle said.

“And your curse?”

“Is that what that is?” Belle asked, looking herself over. One of her hands was mottled four colors of mud. 

"Yes."

"But I did nothing to earn one." _Unless one of father’s clerics saddled me with it. God knows their kind are capable of powerful magic._

"Nothing?"

"Not a thing!"

"No defiling of or trespassing on sacred spaces, promise-breaking to a close one, cursing A Powerful One, or eating forbidden food?"

"None of those," Belle said.

“Have you stolen magic?” Nemo asked. _Though it takes deft fingers indeed to steal magic without being burned._

"Or…" Nemo said.

"Or?"

"Have you agreed to share a curse?" _Or stopped halfway through lifting another’s blight?_

"I think I would know if I did that," she said confidently.

"Nobody ever does," Nemo said.

Belle was silent after that.

Other captains might have lingered on the subject of how the girl had incurred that sort of punishment. But he was captain of the Whale, and never did what was expected. That was why he asked her, “So where do you need to go?”

She looked at the map. "Here?" Belle asked.

The _Whale_ ‘s captain nodded. "Here, we are."

 _The same principle applies here,_ Belle mused. _I need to get behind the front lines. So I can’t go overland, because all their border is a war zone - or uncrossable. By water is the only way._ "Will you take me to here?" Belle asked, her finger stabbing a southerly coastal town.

"That won’t be cheap. _Will_ be stupid," he said.

"My uncle is King Midas. You will be compensated upon _my_ return (to) home."

"What guarantee can you provide?"

"My word," Belle said.

"Okay," he said cheerfully. "Ready to go?"

“I’m ready,” Belle said.

“No luggage?”

“I travel light.”

“This way.”

***IN STORYBROOKE:**

Belle was crossing one of Storybrooke’s many small parks where she bumped into Ella, who was walking with James and the baby.

“I’m sorry,” Ella apologized right away.

“Accidents happen,” Belle said. Noticing the infant, “Such a charming child,” Belle said.

“Would you like to hold him?” Ella asked.

“I’m sure there are reasons why I shouldn’t.”

“I can’t think of any.”

“Okay,” Belle relented, and let Ella hand the infant to her. “They’ll tell tales about you, won’t they?” Belle asked the child. “Yes they will.”

“I’ve never seen you before,” Ella said to Belle. “Do you live around here?”

“I do. But I’ll be moving soon,” Belle replied. To the infant, she said, “And I would have taken you with me. Yes.”

James tensed. “You? You’re the woman Gold found?”

“Yes,” Belle said.

“You aren’t going to take my baby!” Ella said firmly.

“Yours?” Belle asked, amused, and seeing another reason why Rumplestiltskin had always been so quick with a laugh. 

“Ours,” Ella corrected herself.

“Everything has a price,” Belle said. “This is yours,” and handed the child back.

Ella gladly accepted it.

James said, “I don’t understand.” _A price? Are you talking about the cost of schools?_

“Enjoy your lives in Storybrooke,” Belle wished for the three of them. Belle walked off.

“Who was that?” James asked Ella.

“I don’t know,” Ella said.

***IN ENCHANTED:**

The first day on the water passed uneventfully. Until late afternoon…

“Is that a star?“ Belle asked, standing on the deck, talking to a young woman leaning against the railing, the both of them looking up at the sky.

"It is. It gets more obviously _there_ the closer you get. Also, it stands watch over an island the Empress declared a protectorate." _An isle where men are butterflies half the time._

Belle knew of the places she named, save for that island. _The Empress. Who restored the Imperial Family by overthrowing The Hero who had permitted the Empire’s holdings to fall into anarchy. Once the ruler of at least half the globe, Queen Alice - who became Empress Alice of the Sheherazad Family - had been the last to sit upon the Imperial Throne. Then the High Palace had gone silent, never to be heard from again._ And none of the Powerful Ones who knew why it happened - be they demons or magicians or something else - would speak of the reason.

In many corners of the world, with the Empire’s loss of control, new royal families arose, coming from merchants, soldiers, and wizards. Midas’ kingdom was an exception - its rulers were snarks, the men and women who had been the judges and secret police of the Imperial era.

“You look familiar - have we met?” Belle asked.

 _I was in the mud, breathing life into change. So yes._ "You’re Belle," she said.

"I am."

"I am Madenhad. Madenhad Rumswaif. Where are you going?" _Do you fully know yet?_

"I’m bringing a message to Irene Adler. Who, I’m told, lives in a town on ogre territory."

"You’ll get there."

"I do hope so. I gave my word that I’d deliver it."

_I know. You’re good like that._

"The captain told me we should be making landfall in the morning," Belle said.

 _Sooner than that,_ Madenhad thought with a smile, right before the  Whale ran aground.

Belle picked herself up from where she had fallen, and began looking for Madenhad who was nowhere to be seen. Belle wasn’t sure how long it was before a cold shadow fell upon the Whale‘s decks, bringing everyone to a stop. This sensation was one Belle had known only from stories - the same ones which spoke of bravery. _There’s an ogre behind me,_ Belle knew. Turning around and summoning what courage she could find within herself, Belle asked, "Yes?" and hoped her voice didn’t shake too much with fear.

"You’re trespassing," said the ogre.

"I’m sorry; we didn’t mean to," Belle said, wondering how a master sailor could have steered so poorly. "Did we hurt anyone?" Under her clothes, her skin was now three shades of gold; but that would not help.

In more of a thunderous rumble than loudly spoken words, the ogre’s reply was, "You gouged my soul."

 _Oh, great,_ thought Belle, _an aspiring poet like Gaston._

"Which of you might I impress?" the ogre asked.

The captain said, "Great ogre, I am Odysseus, friend of Polyphemus, and -"

"Impress with what?" Belle asked, accustomed to the word’s use in court language.

The ogre’s answer was to pick her up and push the Whale off the grounding. "For ol’ Polyphemus, I’ll let the rest of you go." To Belle, "One more question - do you go best with red wine or white?"


	9. Quests and helping

"I don’t go with *any* wines!" Belle exclaimed as they crossed from the rocks and breakers into a field of roses and pine saplings. "I’m a human being!"

"I know, but my doctor’s got me cutting down my soy intake."

The bravery tales didn’t suggest anything. So Belle drew from her life experience instead: "I can work!" the words out of her mouth almost faster than ‘I will go with you’ had come.

The ogre stopped. "What’re you saying?"

"Give me a task, something to do. If I do it, you let me leave. Alive!"

"Lovely, a traditionalist," the ogre enthused and set her on the ground. "What is your name?"

"Belle," she said.

"All of the weeds are to be gone by sun-up tomorrow; you’re sure you can do this, Belle?" the ogre asked.

"I can," Belle said.

"Good. I’d hate to make stew from your bones."

_Me, too._

*

Belle had been working for hours, laboriously digging up pine saplings, when she heard a familiar voice.

The snark appeared, perching on a low oak branch, and she asked Belle, "Are you sure you know what you’re supposed to be doing?"

Belle yanked another pine sprout from the ground before she said, "I know what I’m doing."

A snarkish smile. "Not what I asked."

"Then speak plainly," Belle said.

 _Oh sure, take all the fun and challenge out of it._ "What were you asked to do?"

"Remove the weeds from this field."

"Right," said the snark. "So why are you taking out the baby trees?"

"A weed is a plant that doesn’t belong, and roses aren’t weeds," Belle said. _And I can’t see anything else growing in this field._ "And I thought -"

"Am I helping you work?" she asked Belle sharply.

"Some would say so."

A better smile. "Your skills’re improving. I’m only helping you if I convince you of what to do."

Belle looked at her.

The snark sighed. "Consider the giant who hired you, the ogre who does business with Urashima. Think of him - his asthetics, his business, his hobby. Which *to him* would be the weed?" She paused, and said, amused, "*That* is helping." And then she rolled off the branch, vanishing into the darkness.

*

The snark groaned when Belle was halfway done replanting the uprooted pines. "Just ask," she told Belle.

"I didn’t say anything," Belle said, not surprised she hadn’t noticed the snark’s return.

"I know. And *very* *loudly*."

"It’s kind of personal."

 _Going to ask if I slept with your uncle?_ "I am a snark. We don’t have a ‘personal.’ Ask."

"Why don’t you and Romulus like each other? You’re both friends of my uncle," Belle said.

"Romulus swore his loyalty to Midas in exchange for a home in his retirement. *I* worked alongside Midas before and while he wore the Ears."

 _Some kingdoms give a laurel crown to their puppet princes. The Empire‘s client crowns had mule ears._ "My uncle was a snark?"

"What makes you think he stopped being one" _Did you think he got the golden touch from Rumplestiltskin?_

"I…"

"Would have noticed? What would you have been looking for?" A shrug to remove the sting. "Even had you known, you’re only human - and thus you see but you do not observe."

"How do you suggest I learn to observe?"

"Have you helped anyone?"

"I have," Belle said. "I never asked anything in return."

 _Good._ "Did you receive anything in return?"

"I just said -"

"Did you? That was not what I had asked. Consider that your first lesson in observation," Snark said with a Cheshire grin.

 _Observation, huh?_ “Did you take my shadow away from me?” Belle asked.

“No. Ogres have their souls, snarks have their shadows, and humans don’t know what they have - until it’s gone.”

“I thought we were human.”

“Has anyone ever thought you weren’t a normal girl?” Snark asked Belle.

“No.”

“Then consider us human with a trick or two up our sleeves.”

“Do we all have the same trick?” Belle asked.

“I cannot turn people to gold,” said the snark. “I can steal people away. Souls and shadows can’t grab much, but physical hands can.”

“What could a shadow touch?” Belle asked.

“Think about a normal shadow, the sort you once had…was there anything it couldn’t touch? Now envision it capable of covert actions.” _And if you need to disappear, just retreat into it._ She said something to that effect, and demonstrated it.

Which left Belle alone once more. She sighed and went back to work. _If it’s not the pines, I can only see one other thing in this field,_ Belle thought. While digging up the saplings - which she had since put back - she had noted an absence of any underground plants, fungi, or burrowers. “Roses it is, then.”

Belle took a step towards the nearest rose, which told her **“No”** in no uncertain terms. The flower opened, and a form materialized between bloom and Belle.

“Are you a fairy?” Belle asked. As far as she knew, only fairies changed size or place like that.

“Until they had us excommunicated for not bowing before the Hero, we were fairies. I am Hesperia Hesperides.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Belle said. “I’m Belle.”

“And what do you want with us, Belle? Some late-night murder in the name of Heroism and upon the altar of the same?” 

“No!” Belle said, horrified. “I would never do that.”

“Then why were you about to reach for us?” Hesperia asked.

“To take you to safety.”

“ _Here_ is safe. Why should we leave?” asked Hesperia. “The soil’s good. We like it here.” _My sister Dryad would have liked it more, the moreso with all these saplings. I tolerate the pine babies in honor of her._

“I promised -”

Hesperia interrupted Belle. “That’s not our concern. You promised something you couldn’t deliver.” 

“Maybe there’s a way for everyone involved to get what they want,” Belle said.

“And what do you want?” Hesperia asked.

“For everyone to be happy.”

_Seriously?_

"You like it when people are happy, don’t you, Belle?"

"Everyone deserves to be happy," Belle said.

"By force, if need be?"

"Who would do that?"

"Someone who wants everyone to be happy."

"No, I would never do that!" Belle said.

"The King of White did, some say. ‘He used the magic of demons.’" _The magic he learned before he abandoned his first wife. And speaking of demons…_ “You know that all magic has a cost.”

Belle nodded. “Deals, vows, spells.”

“Do you plan to use magic to move us?”

“I can’t,” Belle said. “Even if I could, that’s not me,” Belle said. “It won’t be me.”

Hesperia considered this, conferring with her equals, their roses drawing up into a closeness, a bramble.

 _Were I dishonest, this would be a perfect time to rip them out and send them away,_ Belle thought.

Hesperia returned to face Belle. “We accept, conditional on your answer to this question: where would you move us to?” _It won’t be you, so it’ll be us._

“I know of a few places, and my journey’s not done yet - but no matter what, wherever I think you’d do well, I will ask you what you think of it.”

“We like,” Hesperia said. “We’ll go with you. Know this: what you are about to see cannot be destroyed by the likes of you - set it down where you think we’d like, and we’ll let you know.”

“’It’?” Belle asked, and the roses and their spirits coalesced into a shimmering light egg-shaped rock. Belle pocketed it carefully, and then set to work tidying up the field.

***MORNING:**

“You didn’t fail,” the ogre said, his voice waking Belle up from across the field.

“I said I would do it,” Belle said, marveling at how tired she had been, to sleep standing up. She’d always thought the accounts of being propped up on a shovel were tall tales.

“You did. One question - where are you going to go next?”

“Do you know where I can find Irene Adler? I need to give her something.”

“I do know. The detective lives in the city. You get there by following the road.”

“Thank you.”

“Why? We had an agreement, and we each upheld our ends of it.”

*

The road from the ogre’s was only slightly winding. Belle kept away from the roadside where grew octopus bushes, yateveos, generic trees and sphagnum moss. 

After a few hours, two boys came out from amongst the trees to stroll alongside Belle with an air of practiced ease.

"Afternoon, ma’am," one boy said.

"Lovely day, don’t you think?" asked a second.

"I’m busy," Belle told them. "Go home."

"But we want to help."

"We’re quite ingenious - everyone says so," said the first.

"When they’re not using our names in vain," and both boys chuckled.

"You really want to help?" Belle asked them.

"Oh yes, very much."

"I’m looking for Irene Adler."

"Follow us."

"No shortcuts," Belle warned them.

Tom and Huck looked at each other and shrugged. "Okay," they agreed.

*

It was nearly noon when the three of them happened upon a broken-down cart with one wheel on the opposite side of the road.

Belle had never changed a wheel or done anything similar, but that didn’t stop her from setting the wandered wheel upright and to roll the heavy thing back over.

Tom hesitated long enough to say, “This better not be to trick me into helping,” and he and Huck then helped.

When they were done and the cart was fixed, "Why would you help me, a Samaritan?" the cart’s owner asked Belle.

"Because it’s the right thing to do," Belle said.

The Samaritan woman nodded, pleased with Belle’s answer. "Wait here," she requested, and went to her cart for a book. "Here you go," and handed Belle a book.

"Oh, no, I couldn’t."

"You have helped me; let me help you."

"Okay," Belle said, accepting it.

"Aren’t you going to ask me what it does?" _The villagers were most insistent about knowing, given the rising costs of the ever-fewer books._

"If you feel there’s a good reason to give it to me, that’s good enough for me."

"I like you."

“Thank you,” Belle said.

Tom and Huck said some nice things and tipped their hats a little.

“I have to be going,” the woman said.

“Would you like some company?” Belle asked.

“I’m not going where you are,” she said to Belle. “And I have appointments lined up for all of the next week. But I wish the three of you well.”

“Bye,” Tom told the Samaritan woman.

Huck waved as she towed her cart away. “So, time to eat yet?” he asked.

“In a bit,” Belle said. So the three of them walked a bit further before stopping for the night and having a bite to eat.

After supper, Tom and Huck were leafing through the book in the evening light while Belle made the fire. "Look, here’s ‘How to make doors without breaking walls,’" Tom said.

"Or," Huck pointed out, "’How to revive a dead heart’ sounds useful. Or… ‘The cure for cancer.’"

Both boys asked, "What’s cancer?"

"How would I know?" Belle asked them. The voices within and around her informed Belle that cancer did not exist, that it is a made-up word …here.

Tom said, "This is weird - ‘The Palace Coup and ensuing Thousand-Year Tyranny of the man Hero of a Thousand Faces was ended by Queen Alice Sheherazad. Under the Tyranny, the Heavenly Sheherazads strengthened the Evil One so the Hero would not be unopposed. See also, the Hero-Fae Concord, demon activity during the Tyranny, Heroic scapegoat unto war.’"

*****

"Look, Belle, a camel," Huck said.

Tom dashed up to reach for its head, saying, "We’ll get to town faster if we ride it."

The camel pulled its head away from Tom’s hands, and asked, "Will you abuse my generosity as well?"

"Never," Belle said to the camel. "Do you know the way to town?"

"I do. Follow me, please."

It was a lengthy walk, so after a while, Tom began to tell his tale of the fence painting. But the camel stopped in front of him, stopping them all. A frustrated groan was all the camel said.

"What?" Tom asked. "I thought I was rather clever."

"Perspective," the Camel said.

"Some things I stopped doing when I befriended a slave," Huck said, nodding.

"Once, I had a handsome and useful tail. I had expansive antlers. Then Deer asked to borrow my antlers, and Horse asked to borrow my tail."

"You could’ve said no," Huck said.

"And be selfish?" Camel asked, horrified at the suggestion. Calmer, "There is the town," looking down the hill from where the four of them now stood.

“You coming?”

“Why? I just left. I have an appointment elsewhere.”

“Well, thank you for taking the time to walk with us,” Belle said.

***IN STORYBROOKE:**

"I’ll wait here," Hank told his dad once he’d parked at the curb and gotten out of the car, standing alongside it.

James Feinstein, his father, stood there, not yet taking any steps toward the jewelry store.

"Feet starting to chill?" Hank asked.

James nodded.

"Look, she loves ya, you love ’er, and she doesn’t think I should be abandoned at an orphanage - we both know how often that trifecta comes along," Hank said; _next to never, is how often._ "So you march on in there, and you buy the lucky lady a ring. Or I can go in there and tell the store employees the truth about what a terrific adoptive dad you are, and they cut the price in half."

"I’ll go," James said.

James didn’t get through the store door, before the building was rocked by an explosion - it threw him almost back out to the car. Glass was the least of things blown up and out.

In the smoke and particle-rich air, ears stinging and ringing, Hank knew who he was and who was in his arms: "Jim!" cried Huck Finn.

*****

Kenneth Tenkiller stopped slicing the sushi as memories flocked into his mind, perching where he could reach them.

On the other side of the sushi bar sat Nate See, whose chopsticks weren’t getting any closer to his mouth - because he was starring at the fish-and-rice in naked horror. He had just remembered that he is the great eel named Tuna, lover of the lovely Sina.

"You should go; run away, swim for your life," said Tenkiller, said Tengu.

*****

After a long day, Dr. Whale was ready to go home and relax, maybe see if Mary Margaret was in the mood for him to take her to dinner. _Someplace better than Granny’s, this time._

But there was someone blocking his way. "Can I help you?" Dr. Whale asked.

"You let him die," Ishmael said. _Ahab’s obsession was his own, that isn’t in dispute. But your ship was nearby - he could have been pulled from the water…Ahab might yet have lived._ Ishmael pulled a knife.


	10. Sam Spade, Cinderella, yatveos, and Othello

***IN ENCHANTED:**

By now it was raining.

Outside the row of houses, there stood a statue of a rather normal-looking family…each member of which had only a single eye. The statue was of cyclopean men and women. Beneath, the pedestal read ‘Here We Remember Our Arimaspean Allies.’

 _They’re all dead?_ Belle wondered with a start, before she went inside the detective’s door.

Sam Spade looked up at his now-open door, beholding the drenched young thing - feminine thing - standing in his doorway, dripping what rain wasn’t still pouring outside. Looking up from his copy of ‘Kate Beckett: a Novel’ by Derrick Storm, Sam said, "I can certainly help you, Miss." _Nobody goes out in this cat-and-dogs without being at the end of their rope._

She - her lips redder than passion - shuddered. "Not the ‘help’ you’re fearing," Sam said.

Relief flowed over her. "I need to find someone. I may…" she said.

"You came to the right place. Don’t you worry yourself about payment." Even if she hadn’t been a knock-out and then some, she’d been driven enough to brave the storm. "Have a seat."

“Thank you. I - Wait, you’re human.”

“I am.”

Tom and Huck had run off once she reached this building. _Two boys might be here seeking adventure and novelty. But…_ "Why do you live here, in the ogre lands?" Belle asked.

"Best place to apply the ol’ noggin," Spade said. "Problem-solving, adventure, everything a guy could want… without any of that pesky magic."

“Pesky?”

“Doesn’t stop people from lying, stealing, or killing each other. Just trips anyone trying to do their job looking into those things.” Sam smiled. “Anything else?”

"I need to find Irene Adler."

"Irene’s on a case. Could be gone a few hours. Course she’s had one or two cases that she hid herself away for a month. Give me a minute, let me see what I can do. Chat with my secretary, if you like.”

Belle talked with the blind secretary, who spoke of a world - ‘a valley’ she said her lover had called it - where blindness like hers was the norm. Secretary Medina-Sarote told Belle about what she and her lover Nunez went through over the course of their love…

As she listened, Belle thought, _Apply pressure, persuasion, convince him to change… and never heard from or heard of him again;_ and Belle wasn’t sure who she was describing better - Nunez or Rumplestiltskin.

The door opened, and Sam poked his head in. “Thank you, Medina-Sarote,” he told her. “Follow me,” he said to Belle.

Belle followed Sam through to the back, which opened onto another street, which they ran across - Sam having draped his jacket over her. They were welcomed into a Brownstone building.

“They are not upstairs today,“ the butler informed them.

“Thank you, Fritz,” Sam said as he guided Belle to the sitting room, where -

“Phtooie! Why it is as plain as the function of your corset, woman, that the yateveo is kin to crocuses, not to oaks,” Nero Wolfe said.

“You are exaggerating the capacity of plants to acquire wood,” Irene Adler said.

“Nonsense. If your powers of observation were as keen as your reputation implied, you may have noticed a wooden stalk upon which the flowers of many a bulbous plant display.”

“What do you suggest?” Sherlock Holmes asked, curious. “That the conventional leaves atrophied to absence, leaving the flower petals to devolve into leaves?”

“Quite,” Nero said.

“What’re the tentacles, then?” Sam Spade asked, walking in with Belle following him. “Anther and stamen?”

“Trust you to think of sex, my friend,” Holmes jested.

“One of us has to.”

“And who is your friend? A client or beau?”

“Messenger,” Spade said.

“Are you Irene Adler?” Belle asked.

“I am she,” Irene said. “Are you Belle?”

“I am,” Belle said.

“Then I’m given to understand you have something for me.”

“I do,” Belle said, and pulled out the letter from the Nixie and handed it to Irene.

“Thank you, Belle,” Irene said. “Now tell us, what do you think?”

“About what?”

“Yateveo’s affinities.”

“Oh, I never really read much about plants.”

“And no garden for royalty?” Holmes asked.

 _I have soft hands, I know._ “I was never interested,” Belle said. “Sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing? Stop it!” Wolfe said.

“But -”

“We asked your opinion,” Adler said. “That is not a thing to apologize for.”

Spade nodded. “Opinions are like women.”

“Varied and a many-splendored thing?” Archie asked from the corner.

“Always worth listening to,” Sam said.

“Pardon,” said the - the butler, Belle assumed - “There is a carriage arriving.”

“Shall we wager who that could be?” Irene asked.

“Given the state of royalty these days, no,” Nero said. “Fritz, take this guest somewhere for now.”

“It’s okay,” Irene said to Belle before Fritz escorted her to the little room with the observational peephole.

*****

Cinderella’s carriage let her out at the requested Brownstone. The home’s door opened before she could raise her hand to knock, and a formally-dressed man walked her to a sitting room where three sat, clearly expecting her.

"You are puzzled," Sherlock Holmes remarked with the utmost casualness. He sat to the right of the great man. "It was decided amongst ourselves to present a united front."

"So I wouldn’t have to drive from one to another?" Cinderella asked. "Thank you."

"Phooie," Nero Wolfe said, sitting in the center. "You had hoped to play us off one another."

"I wouldn’t -"

"Confound it, woman! Waste none of our time."

Irene Adler smiled at Cinderella. "Shall I tell you why you are here? Or do you fancy explaining your situation?"

"My husband has disappeared," Cinderella said.

"By which you refer to Prince Sean," Holmes said.

Cinderella nodded. "I need your help in recovering him."

"No doubt," Wolfe said. "But what we wish to know is, what precipitated your dear husband’s absence?"

Easily a dozen excuses came to mind, but she dismissed them all in favor of, "We captured Rumplestiltskin." A statement as bald and naked as a newborn, yet plump with all the implicits.

"Did you tell him to be captured?" Adler asked after a very long minute.

"No."

"Then you used magic. Idiot," Wolfe said, followed by something in Serbo-Croatian.

"You obviously captured him for either a reason or a whimsy," Holmes said, "which was what?"

"To do with your present pregnancy?" Adler asked.

 _I’ve barely begun to bulge,_ Cinderella thought. "Yes. He wanted my firstborn."

"Strange," Wolfe said, though his voice said he found it not strange at all. "The more-so as he only asks for those as payment for services rendered."

"Your majesty?" Adler asked when Cinderella said nothing.

Cinderella wept, covering her face with her hands until she felt able to admit that, "Yes! Yes, he offered me a way to attend the Ball. I thought he would want money, or jewels, or land."

"As you assume we do," Wolfe said.

Cinderella sniffled. "Wh- What *do* you want?"

"In short, letters of marque," Holmes said.

"We want, in writing," Wolfe said, "your authority granting us the freedom to travel wherever we require, to question *anyone* -"

"Regardless of your feeling for them," Adler spelled out for Cinderella.

"Quite. You must also agree that we will work at our own pace."

Holmes added, "Your majesty cannot have us hassled or pressured by yourself or agents of your will, and may not object or interfere with any other cases any of us may take up prior to the completion of your case."

Cinderella nodded. "Yes! I agree! I will have it written within the day."

"You do that," Adler said. "Return it to any of us, and it will reach the others."

***Meanwhile:**

“It happens,” Fritz said to Belle. “People come to us if they want a way out of a deal they have agreed to. Sometimes it is before they feel driven to break the deal; rarer, such as now, they attempt the break before asking us for our assistance.”

Belle continued to look through, at Cinderella.

“They are afraid,” Fritz said, answering an unspoken question. “Never underestimate the value of fear. People do most anything because of it. King White is a good example - he did not abandon his first family out of fear; but everything he did after that **was** born of fear. When he was between marriages, the Oracle told him his demon-related actions would kill him. So he made a deal with the Nixie, and King White married his second wife and forbade Princess Snow from learning her inheritance.”

“Because the King thought she would kill him if she knew?” Belle asked.

“Or might invite someone to tell her of her mother, so she could know what ‘dear mama’ was like.”

“Did it work?”

“The Oracle’s words came to pass.”

“Could he have done anything which might have saved him?”

“Reconciliation, perhaps; but unlikely.”

“Why? I’m sorry, but why would it be unlikely?”

Fritz didn’t look happy.

“Does it have to do with how King White wanted everyone in his kingdom to be happy?”

“It does,” Fritz said.

“And if you’re forcing someone to do something, any reconciliation with that person isn’t believable.”

“Yes.”

Soon enough, Irene popped her head in and said, “Thank you, Fritz. Belle, come with me.”

“Can I ask where we’re going?” Belle asked.

“Asking’s easy,” Irene joked.

“I -”

“I’m escorting you to meet royalty. Not the strangest job I’ve ever had. Grab a coat - any that fits, really.”

No matter how hard she tried, Belle couldn’t entirely stop thinking about the confluence. Cinderella’s deal with Rumplestiltskin had been only two months before Belle had agreed to go with him. And she recalled her words to him so long ago and so recently: _‘If I’m never to know another human being, can’t I at least know you?’_

Belle looked up at the inky vastnesses between zodiac signs. _Was the baby for me, something to fill my time when I finished my chores, so I wouldn’t be underfoot and inquisitive?_

On impulse, Belle asked the first thing that came to mind that didn‘t have to do with babies: “Are you a snark?”

“By birth, yes I am,” Irene said. _My mother was captured and impressed into the musical profession. I inherited her operatic voice._ “But as I never underwent the change, I can perform none of the feats of snarks.”

“How many changes do snarks undergo?”

“Two. Not counting birth or death.”

“And the first makes you a snark?” Belle asked. “Able to hide in shadows and whatnot.”

“Yes.” _Though normal snarks prefer professions, leaving the hiding to the next stage in life._

“And the second?”

“There is a special collective name for super-snarks.”

As the two women walked to the door, Belle said, “Thank you. I…”

“Needed to know,” Irene said, understanding the feeling very well, from personal and professional experience.

*****

They walked down the at-times cobbled street in a companionable silence until they were joined in their walk by - “Good afternoon, Othello,” Irene said.

“Irene,” Othello said cheerfully, “and Irene’s friend.”

“Did that Capulet job pan out?” she asked.

“I got to the bottom of it,” Othello said.

Belle walked in silence as they talked a while. _I never had friends,_ Belle thought, watching how they were. _Except Rumplestiltskin._

“And what do you think?” Othello asked.

It took Belle a moment to realize he was asking her, not asking Miss Adler. “I’m sorry?”

“Finish these sentences, in your mind if not with your lips. Are you ready?” Othello asked.

“Ready,” Belle said.

“Someone who prevents another from doing evil is…”

“Good,” Belle said.

“It is better to be lonely than…”

Belle considered that. “Alone.”

“She who does not deserve friends is…” Othello asked.

“Mistaken.

“It is better to have loved than…”

“To not,” Belle said.

“It is better to have loved and lost…”

“But only if you try not to lose.”

“It is not worth winning when…”

“It costs you your friends.”

“Here we are,” Irene Adler said, the two of them standing before a door with a vaguely goat-shaped knocker. By the time they reached this door, Othello had been called away to consult with Sam Spade on a case.

Belle watched as Irene went up the few front porch steps to knock on the door, and wait.

The door opened. To Belle’s eyes, the three young women at the doorway talking to Irene looked like sisters… But for one detail.

“You’re the Belle?” Three-Eyes asked Belle once Irene finished talking.

“I am,” Belle said.

“Well,” Two-Eyes said, “looks like we’re in the presence of royalty. Again.”

“She doesn’t look the type to smear the reputation of us and our late goat,” One-Eye said.

“Never know. She might take offense faster than that prince did.”

“I would never do that,” Belle said.

“Who are your friends?” Three-Eye asked.

 _Um…_ and answered with the only name that came close. “Rumplestiltskin.”

The three sisters tensed.

 _Did you cross him, or did he cross you?_ Belle wondered. “You’ve met?”

“Yes, we know Rumplestiltskin,” Two-Eyes said. “Our father fought Rumplestiltskin’s squad in the War. Your friend earned a stay of execution, and a limp, so he lived to return to his pregnant wife.”

One-Eye picked up the accounting: “Then your Rumplestiltskin changed his occupation, and came back and smote our father, father’s friends, and father’s rivals.”

“That’s why,” Three-Eyes said to Belle, “we told you to be thankful we don’t follow heroic traditions such as guilt by association.”

“And after killing all of them, Rumplestiltskin then turned to our mother and set a curse on her,” One-Eye said.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Belle said sympathetically. “Is she okay now?”

“Mother died,” Three-Eyes said. “The curse focused in her womb, changing the three of us.”

“Our family are Arimaspeans,” One-Eye said.

Belle knew that name and said as much. “The one-eyed people who fight griffins and dig for gold.”

“Those were the traditional occupations of the pre-Heroic Age, yes.”

 _Oh, dear,_ Belle thought, as it occurred to her that having two eyes was not a normal thing for a cyclopean race.

“Well, let’s go,” Three-Eyes said.

“This’s a strange request, but we’ll accompany the both of you,” One-Eye said to Adler.

“How far?” Adler asked.

“Until we leave.”

**.~~~IN STORYBROOKE:**

Emma arrived at the town library promptly. “Thanks for the call,” she said to Ms. Scope, the head librarian, who nodded.

“I asked One-Eye to summon you,” the Nixie said absently to Emma.

“You mean Mrs. Scope?”

“Names…” Nixie said, looking at the titles on display. Plucking a thick book from the shelf, she held it up. “A man lost his wife to death. When he went hunting, he passed through a hole, and found himself in the land of the dead. He found his wife, and they were happy once more. But he fled the other dead, who chased him back through the hole, and they sealed the hole so nobody else could pass through from either side.”

“Nice story,” Emma said. “Or is that true too?”

“I don’t know if it happened before. But I know it’s my task now.”

“To chase people?” Emma asked, deliberately misinterpreting so as to force May to reveal what was going on.

 _Herding, not chasing._ “Only those who want to go home.” _And Belle is to bring the magic back with us all._ “And your predecessor is going to help.”

“Graham’s dead,” Emma said.

“Physics argues otherwise,” May said.

From reading May Noapte’s file, Emma knew that her gang had been so successful in part because of using physical laws to their advantage. “Which part of physics?” Emma asked. _I don’t remember Shroedinger’s Cat being in Henry’s book._

“Come and see."


	11. Accomplish a miracle

***IN ENCHANTED:**

They had not been walking together when they encountered the Seven Swan Sisters. “We came to see if you needed our help again, and instead, you bring us gifts, Belle,” one sister said.

"What gifts?” Belle asked.

“You would hand us over?” Two-Eyes challenged Belle.

“No!” Belle said. “I’m not handing anyone to anyone.”

“They are our enemy,” One-Eye said, glaring at the swans swooping all around.

“Can’t that stop?” Belle asked.

“When they stop. For all time,” the fourth swan sister said.

“There’s no way but death? I thought you all hated heroes.”

“Animosity needs no hero for it to exist.”

“On that, we can agree,” Three-Eye said.

“That’s a start, right?” Belle asked. “Maybe there’s more you can agree on, you just don’t know it yet. It doesn’t cost anything to try and find out.”

“And if we do this…” One-Eye asked. “What then?”

“It could work.”

“And if not?” asked the second swan sister.

“I accept responsibility for it not working,” Belle said.

“Braver than a prince,” Two-Eye said.

“What do you propose, Belle, as our route to peace?” asked the fifth swan sister.

Belle thought. She pieced together the wandering of the swan sisters, together with the verdant property of the sisters One-Eye, Two-Eye, and Three-Eye, and Belle added one of her own experiences. “Are there any places where plants _should_ be growing, but aren’t?”

“You expect us to garden together?” the second swan sister asked.

“No,” Belle said.

“Idle curiosity?” Irene Adler asked.

“No. I would like to ask all you sisters to help a family find a new home. They asked me to help, and I know you’ll be able to help them more than I can,” and Belle took the egg-shaped seed out of her pocket. “This is Hesperia and her friends and family,” Belle introduced. Instead of asking ‘can you,’ Belle asked, “Will you help them?”

“Yes,” said the swan sisters, landing and becoming women.

“Yes,” said One-Eye, Two-Eye, and Three-Eye in unison.

All ten of them touched Belle’s hand and arm to affirm their solidarity . . . And they felt a flexible sheath of armor enfold each of their souls: protection. And Belle could see and feel her goldness in them now.

There was clapping, and all twelve women looked at where it was coming from. The three sisters, the seven sisters, and Irene dropped to their knees… Belle following their example.

“Yes, I am the daughter of King Asmodeus,” said she who had been clapping. “And a hearty congratulations to you, Belle batmidas. You’ve united the ogres, Aras means, and all others.” _The end of that War is near. Finally._

“All I did was break up a fight,” Belle said.

 _And you effected their souls, which will be spread to anyone they in turn touch, and so on._ “Word spreads quickly, you know that. Influence ripples outward, encompassing many others.” She waved a hand, and the Nixie fell out of it, full-sized by the time she hit the ground. “In recognition of your accomplishment, her life is in your hands.”

“But -” Belle said.

“My judgment is final for all of you before me.”

The Nixie said, throwing sand and water-sweat from her body into the air where it took form as shadow-shapes, "Behold, the Great Chain of Being. A hierarchy of power. Illustrated here are all those who can manipulate reality with varying degrees of ease. The greatest danger for we in the Chain are those whose power is near our own."

 _A bear is more threatened by a hound than by an ant._ "Even Rumplestiltskin?" Belle asked. _Surely he would be near enough to the top to be unvanquishable._

"Even the Dark One. Open warfare between those on the Chain, tends to be disastrous even when there **is** a victory. Can you think how we fight without destroying the world?"

Belle thought of that woman in black. "Using ordinary people."

A nod. "People. Beasts. Some at the lowest rungs of the Chain."

"How could I have been so stupid?"

A pointed look.

"No, don’t answer that," Belle said.

"Look at chess. You were a pawn; what will you be?"

"The greater Powers carved the geopolitical lands and waters long ago - borders here, neutral sands there, autonomous pockets scattered throughout. Humans can change things, as you say, Belle: their actions can tip the balance one way or another - moving the borders or enlarging the pockets by their dealings with the Powers."

"Why do they need us?" Belle asked.

"Who would win: Midas or an unarmed man? An armed spearman or a disarmed one? Humans are a pointy stick.”

“No more stalling,” Asmodeus’ daughter commanded Nixie.

“Yes. Of course,” Nixie said. To Belle, “What do you wish? My remaining lifetime serving you? My powers?”

“No,” Belle said, shaking her head. “I don’t want either of those. I’d like for you to not plot or anything. Forgive and don’t be rude,” thinking of the Nixie’s snark-related remarks.

The demon Princess chuckled. “She wants jubilee, Nixie. Your desire is irrelevant.” To Belle, “Anything else? You can freely ask for anything, for yourself or for Rumplestiltskin - the Nixie will pay any magic’s cost.”

“That’s all,” Belle said.

“Then this I offer,” Nixie said to Belle. “In payment,” the Nixie said, “you can see a person’s past.” Smiling almost Cheshirely, she said, “And as a demonstration,” and laid a hand on Belle’s shoulder.

Belle saw -

-A man whose business is dying, whose family will soon become beggars.

\- offer him success, at the cost of a newborn; he agrees, thinking they are kittens.

\- watch him go home and be horrified.

“Now you believe, yes?” asked an amused Nixie.

Belle nodded.

“Go forth,” the demon Princess said, “and spread the news of this peace.”

All nodded and departed. Their paths would take them out of the ogre lands and into the kingdoms in time for the spell to pull them in.

As did Belle, who noted that her benefactor, the daughter of Asmodeus, was tagging along with her as Belle departed. “I suppose Rumplestiltskin hurt you, too?” Belle asked as cautiously as she could.

“Never met him,” Belle was told.

“Then…?”

“The Nixie’s note was to take you to the Empress’ door. **Her** , I know.” She felt the gentle breeze going through their hair, reading the inscribed magics approaching. “Storm on the way. Small things will blow through.” _As well as any Powers who choose to go._ Then she said to Belle, “Go ahead.”

“What?” Belle asked.

“The questions you want to ask. Yes, I really am Snow White’s mother.”

“Actually, I was curious why anyone would leave you.”

The Princess smiled. “I knew you’d be a good person to talk to. Actually, nobody’s asked me that before - I assume it’s to spare my feelings. It was not from lack of love that he left. Perhaps he wanted to rule his own land. Perhaps our child filled him with fear: young demons tend to squall.”

“And you let him go?” Belle asked.

“You’re looking for parallels. I let him go to visit his family, believing he would return. He never came back, and tried to seek refuge from me. In my anger, I summoned my father and the court.” She sighed. “I envy you, Belle.”

“You do?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you envy me, when I nearly did what… what that man _did_ do to you?” Belle asked.

“Because you had the choice to do so, and you chose to return to Rumplestiltskin.”

“I chose… But surely you -”

“Have you ever compared your life with a peasant woman‘s ?” she asked Belle.

“I have.”

“And what conclusions did you reach?”

 _The relevant one would be…_ “That there were things she would never get to do, while I could; but also, she could make decisions which had been decided _for_ me.” _Such as Gaspar._ Belle blinked. “You, too ?”

“Yes. That’s why there are so many stories of one Power or another loaning a man or woman their power for a day - for the span of that day, we can pick and choose. That’s also why, in all of history, only one person has ever tried to grab the Sheherazad Throne.”

_The Hero._

*****

They were almost at the Palace of the Empress Alice Sheherazad, when someone materialized in front of them on the trail. “I know you!” Belle said.

“Doubtful,” the Evil Queen said. “But I’d be hurt if you didn’t recognize me,” she added with a smile. To the demoness, “You.”

“You,” the more powerful of the two said.

“So,” the Evil Queen said.

“So,” the demon Princess said.

“So you’re the other woman,” the Evil Queen said.

“So you’re the one who did what I could not. I am in a good mood, and you cannot harm me more than our late husband did,” Asmodeus’ daughter the Demon Princess said to the Queen.

 _Entirely true,_ the Queen knew. “I have no desire any longer to harm you. Much of my magic, I learned because of you.” _Jealousy, envy, and seeking to out-do you at something._ To Belle, the Queen said, “You’re going to go through with it,” the Evil Queen said. “Don’t bother denying it, girl. I want one thing from you: I want to live my life, unencumbered by everything here. A new beginning without interruption.”

“That is why she and others have been so supportive of this endeavor,” the demon Princess said.

 _Endeavor? What ende- my quest journey?_ Belle wondered. “I’ll try,” Belle said.

“Good.”

"We have a deal," Belle said to the Queen. Belle shook her hand, and beheld -

-growing up, the Miller’s daughter, barely noticed; older brother receiving all the love and concern.

-brother apprenticed to a huntsman and later engaged engaged to a woman in town.

-hears how brother came too close to the Nixie’s millpond and was claimed.

-brother’s betrothed finds a way to set him free; makes a deal - hardship and disaster ensue.

-father is apologetic, beside himself, and devotes himself to being the finest servant a daughter could want.

 _Hmm…_ , Belle thought as the glimpses ended and she was aware of being here once more.

The Princess was smiling, and Belle was about to ask - 

“Your Majesty,” both the Princess - smile gone - and the queen said to someone standing behind Belle, who held very still.

“You’ve both done well,” they were informed. “Magus Regina, you have kept yourself occupied and not frittered away your skills. Your feuds are at an end now.”

“Of course,” said Snow White’s stepmother, for even she could not naysay This Singular Majesty. And besides, this latest spell _is_ the last resort, the final option, the only card left to play.

“And princess, you are doing well.”

“Aye, your Majesty, I am.”

“You may both leave me with Belle Midasdottir now.”

The queen vanished in a completely visible and thus non-snaky way. The demon Princess followed the water under the clouds.

Belle summoned the strength and courage to turn around. “Hello?” Belle said as she turned. Once she stopped, “I know you! Or I’ve seen you before.”

“You have. I’m Alice. The Demon Princess envies you, Belle,” Alice said. “I myself am in awe of you: you’re the first one who didn’t want to leave him.”

“’Him’ being Rumplestiltskin?” Belle asked.

“Yes. You aren’t the first maid he’s brought home - you’re the first who felt something for him, who didn’t flee the room when he entered, whom he felt anything for.”

“They were…?”

“From all walks of life; they took with them the baby he procured so they wouldn’t be alone in his castle.”

 _So I was right, about Princess Ella’s baby?_ “How…?”

Alice said, “He has been the Evil One for a few decades longer than I have been Empress. And on the ship, I gave you the name of what I had been.”

 _You introduced yourself as Madenhad Rumswaif. Wait, that sounds similar to_ Rumwaef. _\- Alice Rumswaef. Alice, wife of Rumplestiltskin._

“And your expression tells me you have figured it out,” Alice said.

“You left him,” Belle said. “Like all the others did.”

“No,” Alice said. “I left the man. I fled the coward. He was braver than I thought, it turned out - a lame man, Rumplestiltskin raised our son…who abandoned his newly transformed father.

“But if you’re… Did Rumplestiltskin know he was marrying into the Imperial Family?” Belle asked.

“No, because he wasn’t.”

“Wh - I always thought you were a member of the Imperial Family,” Belle said.

“I am. When I was anointed, I became myself and more by far.“ _In a way, I both died and was invigorated with new life._ “Not entirely unlike our mutual dear one and his Evil One. Much like you, very soon.”

“Me?”

“You,” Alice said, enjoying the look on her face.

“Why me?” Belle asked. “Because -”

“You have earned it.”

“By not running from Rumplestiltskin?”

“Your kindness, your heart, your ingenuity. And your refusal to be a hero and refusal to shirk your responsibilities.”

“Isn’t there someone better qualified?”

“Not to my Imperial eyes.”

*

"You’re the Empress?" Belle asked. “You … You…”

"’Alice,’ please," Alice said, understanding how Belle was feeling, feeling a need to retread some ground just to be absolutely sure. “I selected you, much as I once was selected. The selection was to determine who would perform a vital task. At its completion, I was offered - as you will be offered - a place on the Imperial Throne. My time is over. You’re welcome to it. You’ll do good, whatever you decide.”

"I can’t. I can’t do what you do."

"You cannot do worse than I did," Alice said.

“You don’t know that," Belle said.

"Belle the Accomplished has united the ogres.”

“You defeated the Hero of a Thousand Faces,” Belle said.

“So you could say we each did our part to end the War,” Alice said. _The Hero started the War, and the ogres with their hide-able souls saw no reason to end it even after my victory._ “ And you are not done."

"Please, just let me go."

"Go where? What place do you have? You are here because you have not stopped running, Belle," Alice said.

“I could keep going,” she offered.

“No. No lands remain for you should you leave here. But there is an option. One which involves Rumplestiltskin.”

“I won’t kill him!” Belle stated.

“Death is no challenge. There is a spell on the horizon - use it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Yes, you do. Take the Throne; take control.”

_I can’t say I don’t want that: she knows me well enough to know that others have made my decisions for me all my life. Or have tricked me into doing something. My family, my protectors, that Queen._

_This is a chance to be free of all that…by accepting a different set of restrictions._

_Do I do it? Should I?_ “I…“ Belle said.

Alice nodded. “I understand. I tell you what, you use what power you have for now, and if you come back, be sure and tell me if you would like the job.”

“What power? I don’t have any power.”

“Your shadow shelters within you,” Alice said. “Everyone you have touched, all you have befriended, your shadow skimmed a miniscule portion of their power, and added it to your own. Your ogre peace you did on your own - your power now protects those who abide by that peace. And that is what great power is for.”

“If I agree to what you’re asking me, what do I have to do?” Belle asked.

The shack collapsed, revealing a stone stairway descending into the earth. “From there, you can go anywhere.

“I’ll keep watch until you return,” Alice said. “We’ll talk then if you’re interested in the job,” she reiterated.

Belle nodded and thanked her, half afraid to shake her hand - Alice took Belle’s hand and shook it - and Belle went into and down the stairway. At the bottom of the steps, she came to a carved grotto of a room with a central throne. The throne was made of solid jade.

Belle sat down on the green throne.

As she grew accustomed to the chill stone seat - _Another reason why no one wanted to take their throne?_ Belle thought with a smile - her eyes were adjusting to more than just the ambient light, but also the writing on the walls.

“No, of, not on,” Belle said, her voice hushed. Everything was written, all movement ruled by its description. Belle had an idle thought - and became the providence responsible for the fall of a sparrow.

And all was at Belle’s command. “For now,” she asserted. And understanding came to her: someone with Imperial power needed to remain behind to ensure the existence of everyone who would not be moved by this spell - the ogres and all under their red sky. But someone also had to go with the ones the spell would relocate… _And Alice picked me for that job._

 _Selected me to have so much power._ “Show me Rumplestiltskin’s favorite flower,” Belle said.

That plant sprang forth from the floor in the next second, its blossom alongside Belle’s hand.

 _What about his castle?_ Belle thought, and her surroundings began melting away, replaced with the dining hall of Rumplestiltskin’s castle. But no sign of the dealmaker. “He’s been arrested, captured, imprisoned. I need…” Belle said, and formed a mental checklist of what was needed in the person she wanted.

A compact man materialized before her. “Edward Hyde, at your service,” he said with a flourish.

“Find whomever Rumplestiltskin becomes, and never abandon him,” Belle said, thinking how smashing it would be for Mr. Hyde to be able to see through the spell wave’s effects to at least be able to recognize Rumplestiltskin. _If, like everything else now, **that’s** accomplished as well_.

“Serve the imp?” Hyde asked.

“I trust your decision,” Belle said. _You will be in the hinterlands._

Interrupting her thoughts like a loud noise, the magical Wave impinged on her awareness more and more as it grew nearer. The Wave lifted people from across the land like a cloth removing ink from a stone. The world remained, howling in its newfound emptiness.

Belle watched as it approached, and she could *taste* the magic of it. And she could glimpse into that oncoming water of neighboring realities, the nearest of which was -

 _ **“Kaylee! Could you get your [ ][ ] and tell me what this heading for us, could be?” Wash asked.**_

She did not know this place as Storybrooke. This destination reality.

Here, to her eyes and other senses, reality was a barely-discernable web around her. Her limbs were leaden; her mind was roiling chaos, without form, a void.

Over time, she began to form words.

When her mind was complete, she would emerge and walk the land.

For the time being, she was content to sit and wait in this padded cell.


	12. Where we reach the end

**IN STORYBROOKE** :

Storybrooke’s cemetery was empty this time of night - no one to get in her way. Belle stood beside the Huntsman’s grave, one hand over the buried casket, and hummed a little ditty she had invented as a child.

Graham rose up to lie on the ground under her hand. And he started breathing again. He remembered being sheriff; he remembered being Huntsman; he remembered being brother of Romulus. “Who’re you?” he-they asked.

“I’m Belle,” she said. “Would you like to go home?”

“I remember dying in… in Emma’s arms.”

‘That wasn’t death,” Belle assured him. “It was more like the long sleep poisons.”

‘Never did like those. May have to change my opinion now.”

Belle shrugged. “Can you bring R- Mr. Gold to the funeral home? I really need to see him. And your brother will be with us; I’ll bring him.”

“Yeah, shouldn’t be a problem,” Graham said. “I’ll be right there”

Once Graham had gone, Belle asked, “Was that convincing enough, Sheriff Swann?”

Emma and the Nixie stepped out from the darkness. “I’d ask you how you did that, but it’s more story-stuff, isn’t it?” Emma asked.

“ _From_ there,” Belle agreed and clarified. “I was entrusted with enough to unlatch the door.”

“You’re Belle, as in ‘Beauty and the Beast’s Belle?”

“I am.”

Emma sighed. “Should I ask who the Beast is?”

“You may,” Belle said. “That is what my foster father called Rumplestiltskin.” As Emma was mouthing that name more to herself, Belle said to Nixie, “Thank you.”

Nixie gave a shallow bow - her legs and feet were weak, both from disuse _here_ and an aquatic nature _there_. “Whatever he chooses, I felt she would want to be here.”

“So where is this door you’re here to unlatch?” Emma asked Belle.

“Part of it is in the funeral home,” Belle said.

“Let me guess - the wardrobe?”

Belle looked confused. “I don’t understand.”

*****

The three of them found a gaggle of swans resting in the same room where the body of Thomas Kaiser had been laid out.

“How did they get in here?” Emma asked.

One swan lifted its head and informed Emma that, “We used the front door.”

On this week’s scale of Stuff That Surprised Emma, ‘talking swans’ barely registered.

“Thank you for protecting him,” Belle said. “If you would like to return, please stay.”

“We’ve discussed it,” said the third sister.

“We like flying,” the second sister said, and the swans took positions along the wall.

“They, Sheriff Swan, are the swan sisters,” Belle said, “princesses on the other side of the door.”

*****

Belle, Emma, and Nixie were sitting comfortably in the casket room while the swan sisters sounded the cry to all who had awakened and would come -- no one else would be able to hear it -- when at last Graham returned, with Mary Margaret, Henry, and Mr. Gold in tow.

“Belle,” Mr. Gold said, half sure it was a trick. But also knowing that only one person could wield the power to do all of this - _And it’s entirely in her character to anoint Belle to do it._

Belle came over to where Mr. Gold was standing and, slowly, cautiously, they embraced. Their faces were a mix of joy, relief, and a suspicion that even after all this, a hug would turn them into an inferno or a bug.

“I thought you were dead,” Gold said.

“Almost, at times.” _I came close once or twice._ “I met a lot of your friends,” Belle said.

“I should be worried.”

“No,” she said, and took his head in her hands and brought him down for a kiss.

“Uh, Belle, you **do** recall what happened the last time we tried this.”

“I do. And you have protection now.”

“Oh, I do, do I?” Gold asked with a grin in his voice. Intellectually he knew that not even the Dark One could open a doorway, bookend twins or no. Emotionally…

Belle smiled. “Yes,” and they kissed.

“Now _that’s_ how a story’s supposed to end,” Mary Margaret said. “Uh, what’s happening?” she asked as Mr. Gold’s skin changed.

“Rumplestiltskin.”

“Ready and waiting, dearie,” Rumplestiltskin said.

“It’ll have to wait, I’m afraid,” Belle said. “Alice placed instructions in my mind, and now’s the time for the next item.”

“You met Alice?” he asked as Belle turned and returned to the casket.

“I did. She’s nice.”

“She’s someone I haven’t seen since she left.”

“Really?”

“Who’s Alice?” Emma asked.

Mary Margaret thought, _Wasn’t there a story about an Alice in early colonial Australia?_

“My ex,” Mr. Gold said. “The Empress,” Rumplestiltskin said.

Belle reached into the casket and tapped Thomas on the shoulder. “Wake up, please.”

Under their breath to the ones they had come here with, May and Mr. Gold said, “Matter can be neither created nor destroyed.”

As she watched Thomas Kaiser get out of the casket, Mary Margaret asked, “You can raise the dead?” and mentally kicking herself for not remembering _that_ law of physics.

“Not dead,” Agent Um said. “Deathlike, if you prefer.”

“Please, don’t do that again,” Belle asked her, looking in the direction Sara’s snark voice had emanated from. Of the twins - Romulus and the Huntsman - Belle asked, “Could you hold hands and lift them as high as you can, please?”

Graham looked at her. “That’s it?”

“Almost,” Belle said.

“’London Bridge’ - wait, that’s a poem, not a story,” Emma said.

“It’s also engineering,” one of the swan sisters said as Belle stood between the twins and crouched down, closing her eyes.

To Emma’s eyes, Belle was blinking in and out of existence, appearing and disappearing between the human archway and the wall opposite everyone. And her clothes in those blinks gave way to a sun-kissed weather-beaten dress. Then she stabilized herself…

And the far wall was gone, replaced with plowed fields. _Urashima’s work?_ Belle thought momentarily.

“Is that home?” Emma asked.

“It can’t be,” Henry said. “Where’s all the palaces?”

“Nearly all are empty,” Belle said.

“Now,” Emma said.

“Yes.” _Is this how it was done?_ Belle wondered. Growing up, it had been an article of faith that the Sheherazads had begun their rule one day after everything was created.

“And what happens when you leave? Does all of Storybrooke go with you? Or does it just vanish in a puff of smoke?”

“It remains here,” Belle said. “As does everyone who hasn’t gathered to leave. Sans magic.”

“You can’t do that,” Henry said.

“You can test your claim after I’m gone.”

Rumplestiltskin giggled.

“There is one rule,” Belle said to the group. “ **No** reprisals.”

“You’re taking Regina with you?” Graham asked.

“No. She and the other founders of Storybrooke came here for a chance at retirement and its Happily Ever After. Hence, no reprisals, no agitations or insinuations.”

“Unless you care to learn a fuller meaning of ‘For as long as anyone can remember,” Rumplestiltskin said.

“You can’t do that,” Henry said.

“Oh, I can’t?”

“Your magic doesn’t work that way. You can only make deals.”

“This town is a deal,” Rumplestiltskin said. “Your rush to break the spell was a bargain of its own. And you know what happens when someone breaks a deal, Henry, as the book went into detail on that.”

Having read the book, Emma asked, “But if there’s going to be no more magic, what stops -” and stopped herself from saying ‘dealbreakers.’

“The law, perhaps, Sheriff?” Mr. Gold asked, amused. Rumplesiltskin asked, “Besides, wouldn’t it be easier for everyone all around if you showed kindness to some old women in their waning years, than risk seeing if we left just enough magic to spring traplike on deal-breakers?”

There was a knock on the door. And into the room came townspeople, to be ushered through to the other side of the passage. One of them was Urashima. One was -

“David?” Mary Margaret asked.

David Nolan got out of line to speak with her and her friends. “I’m going,” he said simply, with finality.

“What about us?”

“True love follows the ring,” he said, quoting his mother. “With or without magic, I have every confidence you’ll be okay.” _But that’s the only thing I have real confidence in._

“No, you can’t go,” Henry told him, standing next to David Nolan. “You have to -”

“Oh, I remember,” Prince Charming said. “That’s the problem. Back there, the world itself was built on principles - evil could manage a holding action, but would never really win; here is different. And that’s what ruined me when I began to remember. As David Nolan, I don’t have the confidence to comit, not really; I can try, I can say I will…but when push comes to shove, I’m a pale shadow of what I am and what I can be as Prince Charming,” he said to Henry, while looking at Mary Margaret.

“And Kathryn?” Mary Margaret asked. “What about her?” _We never found a body. Is she dead, or was she brought back like Mr. Kaiser and Graham?_

“I don’t know. All I know I know is I need to find my place. And I don’t have a place here anymore. Too much has happened, and I’m no good to anyone if I can’t be true to my word.”

Emma wasn’t about to argue with him. So she left Mary Margaret and Henry to finish talking to David, while Emma herself made her way over to Graham, keeping out of the way of the townspeople making their way through. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Graham said. “Come to say goodbye?”

“I’d rather not. But if you’re determined to go -”

“Why the hell would I go back there? I thought _you_ were leaving.”

Emma frowned. “Why would I leave Storybrooke? The place has been growing on me these past few months.”

“Told you it would,” Graham said.

Emma smiled, despite all the wackiness in the room. “Yes, yes you did.”

Graham grinned at her.

“You really don’t want to go through…?”

“My brother gets all the girls, I get my soul ripped out by a woman who used me as her personal wolfhound, and we haven’t even touched on why I live day to day with little forward planning.”

“We’ll work on that,” Emma said. “Wait a minute, if your brother is Romulus, then…”

“Yes,” Graham said.

“And I don’t think he really gets all the girls,” Emma said.

“No?” he asked, pointedly looking at his brother with the snark…

“You’re going?” Thomas asked Sara.

“I’m a snark, of course I am,” Sara said, though she let her fingertips touch the back of Thomas’ hands.

“You’re not a snark,” he told her. The two of them shared a laugh at that.

“More than that, yes.”

“And there’s nothing I can say that would change your mind?” Thomas asked.

“Compulsion spells would never work,” Sara said.

“That wasn’t what I had in mind.”

“My loyalties are to Midas and to Her Imperial Majesty,” said Sara. “You and I, Romulus, have been enemies longer than some people in this room have existed.

“That we have,” Romulus said. “And while Rome wasn’t built in a day, our human relationship in a way was.”

“A house of cards,” she said. “Easy enough to set aside when memory returned.”

“There was that sting, yes,” Thomas said, one hand on where Sara had stabbed him deadlike.

“Go,” Graham called over to his brother Romulus. “Have fun, you two.”

“It would seem I’m not the only one who holds out hope for the two of us,” Romulus said to Snark.

“It would never work,” she said.

“Would you object to the Thomas in me simply worshipping you?”

Fingering where scar tissue would have been had magic not been involved, “Are you sure he understands what would be involved?” Sara asked.

Romulus smiled. “We were always fast learners.”

“That we were.”

And so on. Those who were staying and knew what was happening, they said their goodbyes to those who were departing. Those who did not know what was transpiring, they had already been said goodbye to.

And with the crossing of the swan sisters, few townsfolk were left who had not gone to the side they wanted.

“Just you two now,” Graham said, not counting his brother - _The door can’t leave early after all, right?_

“Go through, Belle, Rumplestiltskin,” the Nixie said. “The other side is as empty as it will ever be. Enjoy.”

“Once we go,” Rumplestiltskin asked, “the clock tower’s bell will strike and the residual magic be erased?”

“As my River Demon neighbors have said, the moving finger unwrites.”

“We’ll miss you all,” Belle said.

“Then remake us over there,” the Nixie said.

“We can do that?” _You will die, Nixie, I wasn't wrong about that - but I never said **when**_.

With a smile, Nixie said, “It seems you’ve got a very eager apprentice, scorcerer.”

Rumplestiltskin made a face. “My son was the Sorcerer’s apprentice, not mine. And regarding Belle, the word you’re looking for is energetic.”

 _I have done a lot. More than I ever thought I would do,_ Belle thought. Remembering that scene from her childhood, _I am the second candle,_ Belle thought. To Romulus and Snark, “Do you want to stay or go?” Belle asked.

“We’ll go,” Romulus said.

Belle extended an arm. “I’ll hold it. Do what you need to.”

“Thank you, Majesty,” Romulus said and went over to Emma. “Sheriff, I need to you act as witness.”

“Okay,” Emma said. _Veritable gods and who-not, and **I’m** his pick? O-kay._

Romulus took out a pen and paper, wrote a Latin phrase on it, re-wrote it in English -- _I appoint Ruby to own my properties and my businesses_ \-- and signed it both **Romulus** and **Thomas Kaiser** , then handed it to Emma. “Take care of my brother,” he told her.

And then Romulus was standing with Graham, saying their goodbyes.

And then Thomas Kaiser and Sara Um were gone, having passed over to the other side.

“Farewell Sheriff, Sheriff,” Mr. Gold said. “Neither of you made it easy;” and Rumplestiltskin said, “And that’s what made it fun.”

Mr. Gold added, “And Henry?”

“Yeah?” Henry said.

“Behave.”

“Goodbye, everyone,” Belle said. “And thank you, Huntsman,” she said to Graham, and motioning him out of the way.

“Glad to help,” Graham said.

Belle and Rumplestiltskin left. The door closing and dissolving after them.

On Earth, all the Storybrooke magic died.

“And this is a story nobody is going to read,” Emma said.

**.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~.**   
**THE END.**


End file.
